As it happened: WA border to reopen as Victoria records four new COVID-19 cases; Qld border to stay closed to Greater Sydney as Australian death toll stands at 907

I'll be staying home and catching up with friends on zoom. We did a piss poor job last time lockdown lifted in Victoria, I haven't seen anything that indicates we learned any lessons along the way so I'm waiting to see how we go this time around. Morgan

Go to visit my kids. Seriously, everyone take a chill pill. These idiots who want to live in fear should just remain locked up! I’m going to go out and support my local café as everyone should. Just remember that they didn’t cause this huge mess... ANDREWS DID!!! Have a heart Melbourne and support our people for heaven’s sake!!! Hiding under the doona is VERY UNHELPFUL!!! If you’re going to dob people move out of Australia!!! How un-Australian are you??? Jonno

Going out to pizza in Ivanhoe Friday night (two groups of six on the footpath), doing my regular swim at South Melbourne beach Saturday morning, and rest of the weekend laying low . David

Not a lot, actually. Whilst I’m so relieved shops and restaurants are open - seeing a lot of people already relaxing and not wearing masks in restaurants when not eating/drinking gives me anxiety. I don’t want to go backwards after all our collective hard work. I’m going to take this slowly and see how the next few weeks unfold with case numbers. Unsure

Staying at home and planting out tomatoes in my veggie patch. The first weekend in November is the perfect time to plant tomatoes. Sandra

Not a lot, actually. Whilst I’m so relieved shops and restaurants are open - seeing a lot of people already relaxing and not wearing masks in restaurants when not eating/drinking gives me anxiety. I don’t want to go backwards after all our collective hard work. I’m going to take this slowly and see how the next few weeks unfold with case numbers. Anon

"By returning to the office, we want to start again unlocking the benefits of in-person collaboration, such as better innovating for customers, learning from each other, problem solving together, mentoring and building our high-performance culture," Ms Ferrier said.

"But importantly, we will not be returning to the way things were before the pandemic. COVID-19 has challenged us all to think, work and act differently and we want to ensure that we retain the best of what we’ve learnt – and get back to something even better."

NAB has developed an online booking system in which specific desks are reserved ahead of time and information about the amount of time employees spend at the office is recorded to help with contact tracing efforts "as required".

Hot desking will be ditched and limits placed on the number of people permitted to ride in lifts as the bank encourages staff to remain 1.5 metres apart as recommended by health authorities.

Read the full story here.

I’m one of the lucky ones who has kept their job in tough times and I do have holidays owing next year. But I don’t feel like spending my discretionary income in a state that exploited the sufferings of my own for political gain.

This rules out Queensland - and New South Wales too, even if they ever deign to let me in.

Of course other states had to seal off borders in July as coronavirus infection numbers bolted in Victoria. Containment works.

But those ads the Queensland Labor Party spread through social media in July about how their fair state would be “FLOODED with Victorians” if the Liberals were in power made it clear that they’d be amping up fear and hostility rather than offering words of support.

It must have paid off as Annastacia Palaszczuk is still using Victorians as figures of dread in the final week of her campaign.

And now New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian is determined to keep the borders closed in the south while hammering for the roadblocks to the north to be removed.

While it’s reasonable to consider cautious benchmarks for reopening, she seems awfully keen to go on about how she doesn’t trust the numbers and the standards, drawing it out as an opportunity for another slanging match that keeps families apart. Regional Victoria has lower numbers than Sydney. Is there something else she doesn’t want to talk about?

According to Berejiklian, “it's easy not to spread the virus when people have limited mobility”.

No, it wasn’t easy. It was bloody hard, often dreary and sad and sometimes scary and eventually rather emotional.

Read the full opinion piece here.

Mr McGowan said: "Behind our hard border we began to safely ease restrictions within our state to open up our economy."

"This resulted in a strong economic and social recovery unique to Western Australia. Our economy is once again the engine room of the nation and Western Australians are back to work with confidence," he said.

"Western Australia's hard border has and will only ever be in place to protect the health of all Western Australians. I cannot stress that enough."

Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson delivered fresh health advice to the government this week, which was considered by the state's disaster council on Friday morning.

He said the decision to turn WA into "an island within an island" was unthinkable, but necessary.

Read the full story here.