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NationalCoronavirus pandemic

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As it happened: AstraZeneca vaccine granted provisional approval by TGA as Victoria records two local COVID-19 cases; Melbourne quarantine hotel evacuated

Rachael Dexter, Craig Butt and Marissa Calligeros
Updated ,first published

Summary

What you need to know from today

By Rachael Dexter

That’s all for another day on the COVID blog. Thanks for reading along - we’ll be back early tomorrow for the big decision in Victoria on whether the state will be released from lockdown or not.

If you’re just swinging by to get up to speed, here’s the big coronavirus stories from around the country today you need to know:

What the TGA says about the AstraZeneca vaccine

  • The vaccine is safe for adults aged over 18
  • Elderly people with underlying medical conditions should be vaccinated on a case by case basis
  • So far, there is not enough data to recommend its use in pregnant women
  • The second dose should be administered 12 weeks after the first, but a minimum of four can also be used
  • Provisional approval will last two years, and the vaccine will be subject to strict conditions and assessment

Melbourne Airport warns of ‘significant work’ for quarantine facility

By Michael Fowler, Sumeyya Ilanbey and Melissa Cunningham

A custom-built quarantine camp looks likely to be built near one of Melbourne’s airports, with Premier Daniel Andrews saying there was a “compelling argument” for the facility.

Avalon Airport, operated by Linfox, owned by billionaire Lindsay Fox – a friend and occasional confidant of Mr Andrews – seems the more likely of the sites with a Melbourne Airport spokeswoman saying “significant work” would be needed to build a facility at Tullamarine.

Daniel Andrews says Victoria will build a Howard-Springs-style facility. Penny Stephens

Mr Andrews said on Tuesday the state government was considering options for a purpose-built accommodation hub outside the CBD to replace or to run in tandem with hotel quarantine.

“It’s more than just scoping it, we are going to get on and build a facility,” Mr Andrews said.

Opinion: The federal government must step up: How to fix our quarantine system

By Stephen Duckett and Brendan Coates

Australia’s border closure was one of the Morrison government’s finest moments in responding to the pandemic. Tight border controls have so far given Australia the best of both worlds: little community transmission and a domestic economy largely unencumbered by COVID.

But Victoria’s latest lockdown, after yet another quarantine breach, is a painful reminder that despite our earlier victories, the war is far from over. And our biggest weakness remains a hotel quarantine system that demonstrably is not fit for purpose.

A breach of quarantine occurred in the Holiday Inn in Melbourne.

Over summer there were repeated quarantine breaches and lockdowns, in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and now Melbourne. Now, more-infectious COVID variants have emerged, and another winter looms.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has suggested only allowing international arrivals who qualify on compassionate grounds. But that would mean tens of thousands of Australians remaining stranded overseas, many desperate to return home.

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Breaking: Melbourne’s outdoor hospitality experiment set to continue

By Bianca Hall

Melbourne’s love affair with outdoor dining and drinking will continue until the end of May, offering a much-needed salve to the city’s hospitality sector.

On Tuesday night, Melbourne City Council unanimously voted to extend the city’s pop-up outdoor dining and drinking venues until the eve of winter, investing a further $2.2 million to the program.

Restaurant tsar Chris Lucas at his Chin Chin parklet.Justin McManus

It brings the city’s total spending on outdoor dining infrastructure, maintenance and laneway closures to $7.7 million, bolstered by a $100 million Melbourne City Recovery Fund in partnership with the state government.

The council has issued almost 1500 temporary licences to venues offering footpath trading, and installed more than 200 outdoor dining “parklets”, converting carparking spaces into pop-up venues.

Chin Chin owner Chris Lucas told The Age last month the parklet at his venue had been an effective way to offset the reduced number of patrons allowed indoors.

Read more here.

Recap: Victoria ‘well placed’ to end lockdown, despite two new local cases says Premier

By Melissa Cunningham, Michael Fowler and Kate Lahey

Premier Daniel Andrews says Victoria is well placed to emerge from its stage four “circuit-breaker” lockdown when it is due to end on Wednesday evening, although a final decision has not yet been made.

“I’m not in a position to definitively commit to that, because these next 24 hours will, of course, will be crucial,” Mr Andrews said.

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“However, with a relatively small number of new cases, the excellent work that our contact tracing teams have done, the work of lab technicians and so many other people, we are very well placed, but we won’t know, and we won’t be able to make a final call on that until some time tomorrow.”

Victoria recorded two more locally acquired cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, both linked to the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn quarantine hotel cluster, which has grown to 19 people. The two new local cases confirmed in Victoria on Tuesday are close household contacts of a previously known case and have been self-isolating so are “not unexpected positives”, Mr Andrews said.

Video: Huge drop in COVID cases among vaccinated Israelis

By Reuters

Israel’s largest healthcare provider is reporting a 94 per cent drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the country’s biggest study to date.

Watch the report from Reuters here:

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‘Stuff it, it’s hot’: Hundreds ignore lockdown rules at Melbourne beach

By Chloe Booker and Erin Pearson

Sunbathing is banned and face masks are mandatory but hundreds of beachgoers flouted the rules in hot weather at St Kilda on Tuesday.

About 200 people put up umbrellas, read books and drank beers as the temperature hit 30 degrees, ignoring the stage four lockdown restrictions introduced late Friday night in response to the Holiday Inn COVID-19 cluster.

People relax at St Kilda beach during COVID-19 lockdown on Tuesday.Justin McManus

That quarantine hotel outbreak hit 19 cases on Tuesday, but beachgoers were unperturbed, many ignoring the threat of fines in a repeat of previous hot days during the pandemic at St Kilda.

Most told The Age that they were at the beach to exercise and thought what they were doing was within the rules. All declined to give their names.

Want to copy Howard Springs? Get AUSMAT involved, says AMA

By Rachael Dexter

If Victoria is to replicate the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs quarantine facility, as suggested by Premier Daniel Andrews today, it should be staffed by Australian Medical Assistance Teams (AUSMAT) teams, according to the Australian Medical Association.

The AMA’s Northern Territory President Professor Rob Park said the staffing at the facility by AUSMAT was more important to its success than its layout.

The Howard Springs quarantine facility near Darwin.Ben Sale

“It’s the standard of preparation support that the AUSMAT people have, which is why Howard Springs is way ahead and some of the [other quarantine facilities],” Professor Park told radio station 3AW this afternoon.

“AUSMAT people have been involved in the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone a couple of years ago, and there’s no more dangerous disease than Ebola. So if you can train up for Ebola then really, it’s reasonably easy to train for the COVID preparation.”

AstraZeneca vaccine safe for over 65s, medical regulator decides

By Rachel Clun

Australia’s medical regulator cut no corners approving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for all adults aged over 18, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison assured the country the new vaccine had gone through a rigorous safety process.

It’s the second coronavirus vaccine approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, and follows the World Health Organisation’s emergency approval of the AstraZeneca immunisation for all adults.

Professor John Skerritt from the Therapeutic Goods Administration said the vaccine is safe in adults of all ages.Alex Ellinghausen

But the recommendation for a 12-week gap between doses adds a complication to the logistics of the rollout, with the government admitting the October end date of the program may be pushed out.

Mr Morrison said the provisional approval means the country now has two safe and effective vaccines for the virus.

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Forty exposure sites, nearly 3000 in isolation: Holiday Inn outbreak by the numbers

By Rachael Dexter

With Victoria’s Department of Health managing 40 public and private exposure sites, there are multiple groups of people being tested and isolating.

In total there are 59 household and social primary close contacts across the Holiday Inn outbreak. There are 499 hotel quarantine staff and residents, all of whom are still in isolation, and 1189 primary close contacts linked to the exposure sites.

Here’s a summary of what we know about those individual groups and sites:

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