Health News at Your Fingertips

Here’s a quick rundown of the ACT budget from AAP:

• Deficit of $951.5m for 2021-22, the largest in the territory’s history
• Deficits to continue for next three years
• Forecast deficit of $564m in 2022-23, $530m in 2023-24 and $474m in 2024-25
• Net debt forecast at $5.72bn in 2021-22
• Forecast revenue of $6.59bn in 2021-22
• Rates revenue of $660m for 2021-22

Spending:

• Health: $2.1bn
• Education: $1.5bn
• Police and emergency services: $408m
• Justice: $306m
• Transport: $286m
• Housing: $256m
• Environment and climate change: $242m
• $5bn in infrastructure spending over five years
• $90m for Covid-19 health response

SA Health authorities continue to delve into the case of a woman from Mt Gambier who tested positive for the virus this week after spending time in Victoria, AAP reports.

The case has prompted tough new restrictions for Mt Gambier and two other council areas in South Australia’s south-east.

They include stricter density rules, a limit of two visitors to any home, and bans on private functions and organised sporting activities.

The rules will stay in place for at least seven days.

After testing positive, the woman, in her 40s, was transferred to hotel quarantine in Adelaide along with her four children.

On Wednesday, police reported a targeted arson attack on a car at a home in Mt Gambier, believed to be where the woman lived.

The SA premier, Steven Marshall, condemned the attack.

“This is a very disturbing story. Of course, we condemn this action,” he said. “This a very nasty development down in Mt Gambier.”

SA Health reported no new virus cases on Wednesday after more than 6,100 tests over the past 24 hours including a large number in the Mt Gambier region.

The state is currently dealing with three active infections, all in hotel quarantine.

South Australia is working on “pathways” to allow travellers from Victoria and NSW to come into the state heading into Christmas, but conditions will apply, the premier, Steven Marshall, says.

AAP reports he says SA will be in a position to release its plans in the coming weeks, but it’s likely changes to border arrangements will allow for restricted travel heading into the festive season.

At present, hard closures remain with both states, allowing only essential travellers and people with exemptions to cross the border.

Travellers are likely to be required to be double vaccinated and return negative tests and will face being quarantined, along with any close contacts, if they come down with Covid-19.

“I think people can have some confidence that as we get closer to Christmas that there will be pathways for people to come back,” Marshall told reporters on Wednesday.

At the same time the premier has reiterated earlier comments that SA was not planning any sort of “miraculous freedom day” when all local restrictions and border rules are scrapped.

He says density rules and attendance caps, along with other measures, will remain in place for the foreseeable future and rules around testing and quarantining will stay.

He has also revealed a decision, for the time being, for SA to stick with a 14-day home quarantine for Australians returning from overseas, despite some jurisdictions planning to cut that to seven days.

“We need to be prudent. We’ve got a lot to lose,” Marshall says.

“But the model shows us that at 80% double vaccinated, we’re going to very seriously reduce the transmission potential.”

The Kookaburra ward of the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne has been named as a tier one exposure site, after a parent who visited the hospital a few days ago later tested positive.

The hospital CEO, Bernadette McDonald, says contact tracing is still under way, but stresses this is something the hospital is dealing with every day.

We’ve got very clear screening processes in place but sometimes mum and dad have been in, and then become Covid positive a few days later, and when we find out we take all our precautions. We’re very, very happy and glad that we’ve got lots and lots of single rooms so we can isolate people quite safely when we do get a positive Covid result.

This is something that our teams are working with every day, have been for you know months now, and continue to work with, and they are great capable people and they manage their situations extremely well.

McDonald says the hospital is currently dealing – separately to this outbreak – with eight Covid-positive children at the hospital, and four who are doing hospital in the home.

She says Covid is “not as extreme” in children as in adults, but all patients are being closely monitored.

She doesn’t state when the exposure dates were, and I cannot yet see them on the Department of Health page, but I will try to find out.

AAP has a bit more on the new deputy premier of NSW.

Paul Toole has been sworn in, pledging to restore “business as usual” in the state’s regions after being emphatically elected as the new Nationals leader.

Toole, the MP for Bathurst, regional transport minister and outgoing deputy Nationals leader, defeated Melinda Pavey 15-3 in a leadership ballot on Wednesday at NSW Parliament House.

He was sworn in as deputy premier on Wednesday afternoon.

“I want to make sure we get back to work and it’s business as usual because the people of this state have been doing it tough now for a number of years,” Toole told reporters, referencing the Covid-19 pandemic but also drought, bushfires and floods.

“What’s important here is that we actually get on with the job.”

Bronnie Taylor, an upper house MP and current minister for mental health, will serve as the new Nationals deputy leader.

Toole said Taylor was “talented, enthusiastic and energetic”.

Marles was also asked whether the 125 refugees and asylum seekers still on Manus Island should be brought to Australia and resettled given the government is bringing an end to its agreement with Papua New Guinea around the running of the offshore detention centre.

He said the government should be facilitating third-party resettlement options.

The obligation that this government needs to fulfil is to find third-country options in respect of those who are in PNG. That’s really clear. The basis upon which the centre was established under the Rudd government was to precisely not have people be resettled in Australia, so that the journey between Java and Christmas Island could be brought to an end. That’s occurred.

It’s important that principle is maintained. But that doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have an obligation in respect of those people. And finding third-country resettlement is a fundamentally critical step that the government needs to fulfil. To be honest, we’re eight years down the track and there remain that number of people who have not found third-country resettlement option, and it’s an indictment on the efforts of this government.

On the new requirement that federal MPs working in Victoria need to be vaccinated, Marles said he supports it, and the federal government should be showing leadership:

Certainly, I think federal MPs should be getting vaccinated. We’re role models for the community. We need to take a leadership role here and getting vaccinated is the way we get to the other side of Covid-19. If there are any MPs out there that are not getting vaccinated, I think that’s a disgrace. I think that sends exactly the wrong message in relation to this. I would absolutely expect federal MPs to be getting vaccinated.

Daniel Andrews has made the decision he’s made in relation to mandatory vaccines. I think it’s really important that state governments are able to make public health orders in the interests of protecting the citizens of their state and that’s what he’s done.

To be honest, I think there should be some federal leadership here from Scott Morrison at a national level around establishing standards in terms of workplace vaccination policy. They really should be getting employers’ unions around the table to work through a policy. In the absence of that leadership, state governments need to be able to make public health orders of this kind and I support what he’s done.

All we’ve got here is conjecture. This is an entirely different situation to what we’ve seen in New South Wales last week which was very clear and very plain. I definitely don’t think Daniel Andrews should be standing down as the premier of Victoria. I think it’s a completely different set of circumstances to what played out in New South Wales last week.

And I get the state oppositions are going to try and beat up conjecture but that’s all got at the moment.

Australians with compromised immune systems could start receiving Covid-19 booster shots this year before third jabs are rolled out more widely in 2022, AAP reports.

Health authorities are closely monitoring overseas programs with the United States, United Kingdom, Israel and France among countries offering boosters.

Vaccine rollout coordinator John Frewen said science was not yet settled on third jabs, but the health department was working on a strategy.

“It’s possible we may see a third dose for those people who have compromised immune systems in some way, maybe later this year,” he told the Seven Network on Wednesday.

“But otherwise I think that the plan for the boosters will either be later this year or more likely into next year when it will all become a bit like the flu shot.”

A major US study published on Monday found Pfizer was 90% effective at preventing Covid-19 hospitalisations for at least six months even against the rampant Delta variant.

But protection from infection dropped from 88% within one month after receiving two vaccine doses to 47% after six months.

Booster programs in rich countries have come under fire with many poorer nations still trying to vaccinate their populations.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation will in coming weeks provide updated advice about a small cohort of people that may need a third dose to complete their primary course.

“Atagi anticipates that additional booster doses for other populations may be required in the future,” the expert panel said last month.

Federal and state governments are planning to start a booster program in late 2021 subject to Atagi advice and regulator approval.

A company that was providing accommodation for homeless people in 2020 as part of the Victorian government’s Covid-19 response, has been charged by Worksafe over safety breaches.

Worksafe has alleged Keyun Enterprises, running the Comfy Kew Apartments, failed to have a Covid Safe plan in place, and did not require contractors to sign in, or require people to wear a mask on the premises back on 28 September 2020.

Worksafe alleges this put patrons and contractors at risk, and the company has been charged over the breach, with a mention hearing set at the Melbourne magistrates’ court on 30 November.