As it happened: Victoria records just 11 COVID-19 cases; NSW on high alert after taxi driver worked while infected as Australian death toll jumps to 851

Thank you for following our live coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, September 21.

Recapping today's key events:

• Victoria recorded 11 new cases of coronavirus and two deaths. Premier Daniel Andrews has not to bow to pressure when easing coronavirus restrictions as the falling daily infection rate leads to growing calls for the government to bring forward its road map.

• NSW recorded four new cases. NSW Health is warning anyone who dined at the Moorebank Sports Club in south-west Sydney last Monday evening to monitor for symptoms after it was confirmed that this location had been added to a list of locations that an existing case from earlier today had visited.
• One new case has been reported in Queensland in a returned traveller in hotel quarantine.

• Evidence presented at the hotel quarantine inquiry on Monday clearly demonstrated that, from the first day the program was set up on March 27, there was help available from the ADF for the quarantine effort despite Mr Andrews' statement to parliament that it was "fundamentally incorrect to assert that there was hundreds of ADF staff on offer".

Click here to read our live coverage from Tuesday, September 22, 2020.

NSW Health is warning anyone who dined at the Moorebank Sports Club in south-west Sydney last Monday evening to monitor for symptoms.

The club has closed this afternoon for cleaning after it was confirmed that this location had been added to a list of locations that an existing case from earlier today had visited.

"Anyone who attended the club at this time should monitor for symptoms, and if they appear, get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result," a statement from NSW Health read.

"NSW Health is working with the venue to identify people who attended the club at this time, and will contact patrons to identify close contacts."

So that's it from me, Paul Sakkal is back on the blog and will take you through the rest of the night.

Stay safe out there.

More than one in 10 research positions at Australian universities are predicted to disappear by 2024 as revenue from overseas students dries up, and prestigious Group of Eight institutions are tipped to lose the most resources.

Some smaller universities, such as Deakin University in Geelong, face an "extremely high" risk of recent strong research capacity gains unravelling as COVID-19 wipes out billions in revenue from fee-paying international students.

Fees from overseas students cross-subsidise just over half the research work in Australian universities. However, the pandemic will cost the higher education sector about $16 billion in the next few years, according to sector body Universities Australia.

New modelling by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education predicts universities will collectively lose between $6.4 billion and $7.6 billion in research income between this year and 2024.

Read the full story here.

President Donald Trump's tweets have provided a constant accompaniment to the rising US COVID-19 death toll as it has stretched its way to 200,000.

As this piece today notes: "He's blamed China; he's blamed state governors. He's blamed the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention for the spread of inaccurate data, while retweeting misinformation himself. And interviews with journalist Bob Woodward reveal he knowingly misled the public all along."

Of the more than 5000 tweets and retweets Trump has sent this year, about 300 have been related to his public messaging on COVID-19, which he first tweeted about on January 24. Below you can see an interactive graphic we've put together to plot the president's tweets against the country's rising death toll.