As it happened: International arrival caps increased as Victoria records 45 new COVID-19 cases; QLD border to reopen to ACT as Australian death toll jumps to 839

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock declined to rule out a second national lockdown and said the acceleration of coronavirus cases and hospital admissions across the UK represents a "big moment" for the country.

"I have learned over the last nine months not ever to rule anything out," Hancock told BBC radio on Friday, when asked about reports ministers are considering a lockdown in October as a virus circuit-breaker. "We want to avoid national lockdown altogether, that is the last line of defence."

With daily COVID-19 cases running at levels last seen in May, the UK's test and trace system is under strain and millions of people across the country have been placed under local restrictions to limit the spread of the disease.

The resurgence poses a major dilemma for the government, which is trying to keep the transmission rate down while stimulating an economy that slumped more than any other major developed country during the pandemic.

The federal aged care watchdog has ramped up compliance activity this month, after being savaged over its failure to adequately police the sector during the pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed in a statement issued after Friday's national cabinet meeting that the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission had completed 673 infection control site visits by September 11, about a quarter of the nation's 2720 residential aged care facilities.

"These visits are sequenced based on a risk assessment such that those visits represent those considered to be highest risk facilities," the prime minister said.

Of these visits, undertaken since March, 200 were in Victoria and 225 were in NSW.

Australians will see less of Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth as the infectious diseases expert steps back from the high-profile role to focus on his day job.

Dr Coatsworth, who was appointed to the federal government's coronavirus expert advisory panel in March, has since become a household name, fronting the cameras for scores of press briefings and television appearances throughout the pandemic.

On October 12, the respiratory specialist and infectious diseases physician will scale back his Deputy CMO duties to one day a week and return to his previous role at Canberra Hospital.

Nicknamed "Dr Cheekbones" by some in the Canberra press gallery, Dr Coatsworth has fielded hundreds of questions from journalists about the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison can "come [to Queensland] if he wants", Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says, before adding "it doesn’t worry" her whether he comes or not.

Mr Morrison told the Today show on Thursday he didn't think there should be "double standards" over the state's border exemptions, and expected he would quarantine himself for the mandatory 14 days if entering Queensland ahead of the state election.

"The same rules should apply to me as anyone else," he said. "Those rules should be fair, they should be sensible, and they should be compassionate too, I think."

"Look, I'll follow the rules like everyone else, even if those rules from time to time seem a bit hard to work out."

Western Australia has come to a unique agreement with the federal government after Premier Mark McGowan and Prime Minister Scott Morrison butted heads over the issue of increasing the state’s cap on international arrivals.

Mr McGowan said the Commonwealth’s unilateral decision to double arrivals into WA carried too much risk.

Instead, from Monday, September 28, WA will begin to receive 200 more international arrivals a week, and will work with the Commonwealth to secure more defence personnel to help with hotel quarantine.

Once those extra resources are in place, from October 12, WA will have a total weekly arrivals cap of 1025 people a week.