Australia news LIVE: NSW records 3057 new local COVID-19 cases, two deaths; Victoria records 1245 new cases, six deaths; Premiers push for shorter interval before booster shots

• Mr Morrison said today a “strong recommendation” to wear masks in indoor settings was “very sensible” but added that “Australians don’t have to be told by governments how to live”. But Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, and his state and territory counterparts have advised all jurisdictions that masks should be worn in more indoor settings. Masks are already mandated in some indoor settings in Victoria and Queensland, including shops. As of today, masks are also mandatory in all indoor settings in Tasmania, and will be mandatory in the ACT as of 11.59pm tonight. But masks are not required in most hospitality and retail settings in NSW.

• Dana Daniel reports that surging Omicron coronavirus infections will overwhelm the health system unless some restrictions return, according to modelling prepared for national cabinet that also recommends bringing coronavirus vaccine boosters forward. The Doherty Institute modelling predicts that without low-to-medium restrictions such as density and visitor limits, waning vaccine protection against the Omicron variant puts Australia on track to hit about 200,000 cases a day by late January or early February.

• New Zealand has delayed the start of its phased border reopening from 11.59pm on January 16 to the end of February next year. The Ardern government said in a statement that the changes were aimed at slowing the “rapid spread” of coronavirus that had been seen overseas.

• The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders will meet tomorrow as NSW and Victoria push for the interval between second coronavirus vaccine doses and booster shots to be shortened. Premier Dominic Perrottet wants the interval reduced from five months after a second dose to four months. Booster doses are only available to Australians aged 18 and up.

• Australian Medical Association President Dr Omar Khorshid says Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders showed great leadership during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and “now is not the time to step back”. “Let’s keep COVID at bay. Let’s keep numbers at reasonable levels,” Dr Khorshid said. “It is a no-brainer in the view of the AMA and in the view of many experts who have been coming out over the last few days that sensible measures that do not have significant impacts on people’s lives, like wearing masks and simple social distancing requirements and limits in indoor venues are all measures that are essential to manage Omicron.”

• South Australian Premier Steven Marshall has announced travellers from NSW, the ACT and Victoria no longer have to get a COVID-19 test on arrival in the state if they are asymptomatic, Cassandra Morgan reports. “We now have received advice from SA Pathology and SA Health that we can reduce the testing requirements for those people coming from interstate who do not have symptoms,” Mr Marshall said during a press conference. People from NSW, the ACT and Victoria still have to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their departure for South Australia. “At this stage the only thing we are changing is the removal of the day one compulsory test,” Mr Marshall said.

This is Michaela Whitbourn signing off on the blog for today. I’ll be back at 8am tomorrow.

It assumes only baseline public health safety measures – no stay-at-home-orders, low density requirements, no retail restrictions, schools open – and the partial test, trace, isolate and quarantine responses of a strained contact tracing system.

The modelling also assumes that, in addition to being much more transmissible than the Delta variant, Omicron causes equally severe disease, stating that “all international modelling groups are using this conservative assumption”.

Read the full story here.

Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, and his state and territory counterparts, who make up the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, have advised all jurisdictions that masks should be worn in more indoor settings in response to the Omicron coronavirus variant of concern.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said earlier today the state and territory governments will make their own decisions about coronavirus restrictions but there is a “very important role for masks” in indoor settings.

But the rules across Australia remain piecemeal. Masks are mandated in some indoor settings in Victoria and Queensland, including shops, but masks are not required in most hospitality and retail settings in NSW, which is now leading the nation in new coronavirus infections.

As of today, Tasmania requires masks in all indoor settings, and the ACT will follow suit from 11.59pm tonight.

Mr Perrottet has urged residents to take “personal responsibility” after a raft of restrictions were wound back in the state last week.

He said that the state government had “always said” that as the state eased restrictions it would see an increase in COVID-19 case numbers, hospitalisations and intensive care admissions.

“We will get through this challenge too,” Mr Perrottet said.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard reiterated Mr Perrottet’s language of “personal responsibility” and said everyone in NSW needed to do their bit during the pandemic, including by getting tested if they developed COVID-19 symptoms.

Mr Hazzard said “we are obviously watching very closely at what COVID is doing” and the state was witnessing an increase in Omicron cases.

He said the state’s pathology teams were under enormous pressure as “tourism tests”, required to travel interstate, were adding to the burden on COVID-19 testing clinics.

“Waiting till the end of February 2022 will increase New Zealand’s overall protection and slow Omicron’s eventual spread.”

Under the previous plan, New Zealand was set to reopen the border to fully vaccinated NZ citizens and visa holders in Australia from January 16 and fully vaccinated kiwis and visa holders anywhere else in the world on February 13. All fully vaccinated visitors including Australians would have been welcomed from April 30.

The revised timetable is not yet clear.

Under the proposed rules, travellers will not have to complete two weeks in government-run quarantine but will instead be required to spend seven days in home quarantine.

All travellers will require a negative pre-departure coronavirus test, and tests on day zero and one on arrival. They must also have a final negative test before leaving isolation.

New Zealand recorded 28 new cases of COVID-19 today, 21 of which were in Auckland.

Mr Morrison said today that a “strong recommendation” to wear masks in indoor settings was “very sensible” but added that “Australians don’t have to be told by governments how to live” and “we have to move from a culture of mandates to a culture of responsibility”.

He said the states and territories had “total authority when it comes to public health orders” in any case.

“Australians are responsible people who care about their own health, whether it’s sun smart behaviour or COVID, or any other element of their health and they really care about those they love and they care about their communities,” Mr Morrison said at a press conference in Queensland today.

Mr Butler said the Prime Minister was “rapidly losing control of this growing fourth wave directed by and driven by the new Omicron variant”.

“Australians, as we lead into Christmas, are confronting hours in queues to wait to get tested, days to get the results and one of the slowest booster rollouts in the world.

“We have a government in Canberra increasingly in denial, complete denial about the gravity of the situation. This morning, Scott Morrison has ... repeatedly refused to back in the clearest possible [terms] public health advice from his own Chief Medical Officer and all of the other chief health officers around the country to reintroduce mandates for mask wearing in indoor activities.

“Bizarrely, [he compared] mask wearing during a global pandemic to sunscreen. This departure from adherence to public health advice by the nation’s Prime Minister is a dangerous development.”

NSW, which has the most relaxed restrictions in the country, reported 3057 new COVID-19 cases today, an increase from 2501 on Monday and a new daily record.