As it happened: Victoria and NSW records six new COVID-19 cases; Daniel Andrews faces pressure to end Melbourne lockdown; Australian death toll stands at 904

Victoria

• Modelling for whether Melbourne's five-kilometre movement limit could be increased has

  begun ahead of updates to Victoria's pandemic road map on Sunday. Premier Daniel Andrews has requested more Defence Force troops to help bolster the 100 already working at checkpoints separating Melbourne and the regions too.

  Testing sites in Shepparton were swamped today as after three positive cases were found earlier this week linked to the Chadstone-Kilmore clusters. There were six new cases recorded in Victoria today, and no deaths.

NSW:

• Groups of up to 100 people will be allowed to gather for Remembrance Day services in NSW

  with the state government granting a one-off exemption for November 11 commemorations from COVID-19 restrictions, it was announced today.

  NSW recorded six new locally acquired coronavirus cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday – matching Victoria's six new local cases.

  The NSW tally included a man in south-east Sydney with no known links to any of Sydney's active outbreaks, and three linked to the growing Lakemba GP cluster – its source still a mystery.

QLD:

• Queensland’s Health Minister says he remains concerned but not “panicked” over the case of a Townsville woman who tested COVID-19 positive in Melbourne. The woman travelled for health reasons to stay with family in Victoria, and travelled from Townsville to Cairns and Brisbane before testing positive three days after her arrival in the Melbourne capital.

  Meanwhile a Victorian woman was hit with a $4003 fine after she was discovered hiding in the cabin of a truck intercepted at the Queensland border.

WA:

• The chance of interstate visitors spending tourism dollars in WA over the summer might have improved as cracks begin to appear in Premier Mark McGowan's controversial hard border policy.
  Health Minister Roger Cook on Thursday set a different tone from his leader, saying it was time for the West Australian government to consider relaxing the state's controversial 'hard border' restrictions.

World-wide:

• European nations are closing schools, cancelling operations and enlisting legions of student medics as overwhelmed authorities face the nightmare scenario of a COVID-19 resurgence at the onset of winter.

  With new cases hitting about 100,000 a day, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the United States, where more than 51,000 COVID-19 infections are reported on average every day.

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  This is Rachael Dexter signing off. Take care, and good night.

The postcode that currently has the most known active cases is 3081, which takes in the suburbs of Bellfield, Heidelberg Heights, and Heidelberg West, where there are currently 13 active cases.

Postcode 3081 also recorded a net increase of 12 new active cases over the past week, the biggest increase for any postcode statewide.

There are currently three active cases in Shepparton, the first time since September 16 that there have been any active infections in this area.

Here is a list of all the postcodes that have recorded an increase in active cases over the past week:

In many of these postcodes there are high-risk locations, which were visited by people who later tested positive for COVID-19.

Read the full story here.

For Hong Kong, which has banned non-residents since March, the deal with Singapore is its first resumption of travel ties with another city. Travellers from mainland China and neighbouring Macau still face 14 days in quarantine.

Singapore has already announced pacts on essential business and official travel from China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and opened unilaterally to general visitors from Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam and most of Australia.

This week, Singapore eased quarantine to just seven days for travellers from Hong Kong, from 14 earlier. It has put the city on its list of low-risk places.

International travel in Asia has collapsed during the pandemic because of border closures, with passenger numbers down 97 per cent in August, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines says.

Following the news, shares in Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific surged more than 7 per cent in
afternoon trade.

Hong Kong's daily coronavirus infections have dropped mostly into single digits since August and it has eased some social distancing curbs. Singapore has similarly seen its daily cases fall below 10.

Mr Dunbabin was awaiting the results of Thursday's tests to see whether his business might be affected or if he would be deemed a close contact.

"It's such a fast moving situation. There aren't really any hard and fast rules," he said.

Read the full story here.

Victoria on Thursday recorded six new cases all linked to known outbreaks , which Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng said was "about as encouraging as it gets at this point in time" despite signalling his ongoing concern at the number cases with an unknown source.

Professor Cheng said modelling to be completed by Friday was considering factors such as increasing the five-kilometre movement limit, in place since August 2, to 20 kilometres before what the Premier said would be "significant changes" on Sunday.

"We're looking at everything at the moment," Professor Cheng said.

"There's models being run as we speak and they should be off the computer in the next day or so. It does take a little bit of time to do. We're considering all sorts of things in making those decisions."

Additional drive-through testing sites were opened in Shepparton on Thursday but long queues extended into the afternoon as local authorities expected about 2000 residents to be tested.

Read the full story here.