Australia news LIVE: Doherty modelling predicts health system strain if COVID-19 restrictions not reimplemented to combat growing Omicron case surge

Good afternoon and thank you for reading our live coverage of the day’s events. If you are just joining us now, here’s what you need to know.

• There has been no change to the interval between second doses of COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots, despite calls from NSW and Victoria for those doses to be made available more quickly. Australians aged 18 and up are eligible for a booster dose now if their second jab was at least five months ago. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “ample” numbers of Australians were already eligible to receive a booster dose and had not had one yet, and making more people eligible now would not speed up the booster rollout. The Australian Medical Association had warned there were logistical issues with making more people eligible now for a booster shot.

• Mr Morrison and Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly have urged Australians to wear masks indoors in response to the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19. “Whether it’s mandated or not, that’s what you should be doing,” Mr Morrison said. “Wear a mask in an indoor setting. You don’t need to be forced to do it. Think of Christmas Day when you’re going to see elderly relatives. Wear a mask.” Masks are mandated in a range of jurisdictions, including in all public indoor settings in Tasmania and the ACT and in many indoor venues in Queensland. They are also mandated in shops in Victoria, among other settings. NSW’s rules are the most permissive and masks are not required in retail or hospitality settings but are required on public transport, in airports and on planes, and for unvaccinated indoor hospitality staff.

In case you missed it earlier, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced today that the payment to GPs and pharmacists for delivering booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines would be increased by $10 a dose, as the nation seeks to accelerate the rollout of boosters to eligible adults.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) cautiously welcomed the announcement.

“Any funding boost is welcome,” RACGP President Dr Karen Price said. “We don’t know the full details yet but today is a good day for the nation’s GPs and general practice teams.”

“However, this is not a panacea; it won’t solve every problem in front of us. General practices are under the pump and in coming months will face the challenge of vaccinating young children, a task that is more complex and time consuming than vaccinating adults and delivering booster vaccines.

Singapore will freeze the sale of tickets for arriving flights and buses under its quarantine-free travel program for four weeks from tomorrow, the government said, citing the risk from the fast-spreading Omicron COVID-19 variant.

Under the vaccinated travel lane (VTL) program, Singapore allows quarantine-free entry for fully vaccinated travellers arriving on designated flights and buses from about two dozen countries including Australia, India, Malaysia, Britain and the United States.

But no new tickets would be issued for people hoping to arrive from any of those countries from Thursday until January 20, the government said on Wednesday.

“Our border measures will help to buy us time to study and understand the Omicron variant, and to strengthen our defences, including enhancing our healthcare capacity, and getting more people vaccinated and boosted,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Western Australia will be closed off from the rest of the country from Boxing Day after Premier Mark McGowan announced the border rules with the Northern Territory and Tasmania would be changed to ban all inbound domestic travel.

Mr McGowan also announced the COVID-19 vaccine third dose, or booster shot, would become mandatory for all workers already required to receive the first two shots.

On the border reopening, Mr McGowan said the date remained February 5, pending a catastrophe, but restrictions could be ramped up due to the concern growing around the Omicron variant.

“Western Australia is in the best position possible to prepare for the arrival of the virus ... being cautious has served us well,” he said.

State and territory leaders agreed at today’s national cabinet meeting to move to a common definition of casual contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases and rules for what is required of them.

They have asked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, led by Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, to draw up a definition and return with recommendations when national cabinet next meets in a fortnight.

“You cannot have different rules in different places of what a close contact is and what a casual contact is,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

“What matters is how you’re managing those close contacts and how they’re defined and what you have to do if you are someone in that situation.”

There has been no change to the interval between second and third doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, which remains five months at this stage.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said leaders have asked the expert advisory group ATAGI (the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) to provide more advice on the booster program, including special consideration about younger people, who were the last group to be eligible for vaccines and among whom the Omicron coronavirus variant is spreading quickly.

“There’s been no change to the interval; that will be determined by the immunisation experts and no one else,” Mr Morrison said.

“Whether it’s five months or six months or less than that, the response from all of us as governments is exactly the same and that is to increase those daily dosage rates.”