This was published 4 years ago

As it happened: State records no new local cases as restrictions eased in Melbourne; 25km limit, masks remain

Hanna Mills Turbet

Updated June 11, 2021 — 3:57pm,first published June 11, 2021 — 8:05am

Key Posts

More COVID-19 cases expected to emerge in coming days

Victorian schools urged to postpone pupil-free days

AFL grand final to be shifted if MCG crowds are banned: McLachlan

Elective surgery to restart in Melbourne hospitals next Tuesday

Watch: Victorian COVID-19 press conference

Five Victorians fined $4k for entering Qld without exemptions

New vaccine hub for Melbourne’s west as rollout problems continue

Response to COVID is starting to seem disproportionate to the risks

Rare blood clots must be put into perspective: Dutton

It’s a doughnut! Victoria records no new COVID-19 cases

3.57pm on Jun 11, 2021

Stay safe and enjoy your weekend

By Hanna Mills Turbet

And that’s a wrap from us today. While restrictions have eased in Melbourne today, it’s not quite the long weekend we would have liked with our movements restricted to 25-kilometre bubbles and masks remaining mandatory.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton also warned Victorians today to expect more local COVID-19 cases next week, with contact tracers still searching for answers about where and how a Reservoir family of four caught the virus.

Authorities have not been able to determine how either the Reservoir family of four or the two Victorians who tested positive for the virus after travelling to Queensland contracted COVID-19.

The warning comes after Victoria recorded no new local cases for the first time in almost three weeks.

We’ll keep you up to date with all the coronavirus news over the weekend, and as always, keep an eye on the long list of exposure sites on the Victorian coronavirus website, and if you have any symptoms – a fever, a sore throat, a cough – you can find a list of testing sites here.

And if you’re over 40 or eligible in other ways, find the information to get your corona jab right here.

Stay safe and enjoy your weekend.

3.42pm on Jun 11, 2021

Over 34,000 federal COVID-19 disaster payments processed: Frydenberg

By Abbir Dib

Over 34,000 applications for Commonwealth Disaster Payments have been processed for Victorians according to federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

“In Victoria around 50,000 applications have been received, over 34,000 have already been processed with money making its way to Victorians’ pockets,” he said.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.Alex Ellinghausen

The Treasurer said he was concerned about the effect of lockdown on Victorian businesses.

“We saw a strong comeback in Victoria … but clearly this lockdown dents confidence, it hits investment, it ultimately costs jobs” he said.

“I think it’s really important we try to avoid future lockdowns because of the impact it has not just on the economy, but on people’s mental health.”

Mr Frydenberg said there would be no federal support for businesses like gyms that are still prevented from reopening as Victoria’s restrictions are eased. He said the Commonwealth’s payment support no longer applies since Melbourne is no longer considered a hotspot.

“It’s the state governments that make the decisions about lockdowns. About which sectors are affected, which parts of the state are affected and the level of restrictions that remain,” he said.

3.33pm on Jun 11, 2021

Melbourne diners can claim back 20% of their restaurant bill this long weekend

By Annabel Smith

Melburnians heading out for a meal to mark the end of the two-week lockdown have another reason to celebrate, with the City of Melbourne announcing it will reimburse diners 20 per cent of their restaurant bill, for a limited time.

Diners who spend between $50 and $500 at hospitality venues within the City of Melbourne’s boundaries are eligible to claim back a portion of their total bill, until funds from an available kitty of $8.4 million are exhausted. So first come, first served, or rather, first served, first reimbursed.

The program covers hospitality venues in the CBD and some surrounding suburbs, including Carlton (and its Carlton Wine Room, pictured). Ain Raadik/Visit Victoria

The program commenced early Friday morning in line with the easing of lockdown restrictions. Individuals can claim back a total of $100, across one or multiple meals, provided the bill includes food (not just drinks) and the $50 minimum spend is met. Takeaway food is OK, too, as long as it was ordered direct and you collected it yourself.

The rebates, part of the broader Melbourne Money program, are jointly funded by the council and the Victorian government.

3.15pm on Jun 11, 2021

Victoria overtakes NSW for total doses administered

By Craig Butt

Yesterday was a record day for vaccinations carried out nationwide, with 153,338 people receiving a shot throughout the country.

Yesterday’s numbers beat the previous record, which was set exactly one week ago, by almost 10,000.

Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia all recorded their highest-ever single dose totals.

And Victoria has now overtaken NSW when it comes to total doses administered, racking up 1,660,708 million compared with its northern neighbour’s 1,655,779:

Victoria’s vaccination numbers have been surging since May 24. That was the day four new locally acquired COVID-19 cases were confirmed, the first indications of the outbreak that led to Melbourne going back into a strict lockdown for a fortnight.

It’s worth noting too that while Victoria has recorded the most doses in real terms, on a per capita basis it is coming fourth. Once we adjust for population size, Tasmania is in the lead, followed by ACT, with the Northern Territory in third.

You can see how the rollout is progressing in your state/territory using the interactive table below:

3.04pm on Jun 11, 2021

What’s within your 25km bubble?

Restrictions across metropolitan Melbourne may have eased today. But regional travel is still “a no go” for Melburnians, acting Premier James Merlino told us this week.

So. What can you do? Perhaps an adventure in the great outdoors? Pop your address into the map below and it will give you your 25-kilometre bubble. Then enjoy the fresh air!

3.00pm on Jun 11, 2021

Reader responses: Here’s what you’re doing this weekend

By Hanna Mills Turbet

We’ve had plenty of responses to our earlier question about your plans for the weekend – and it’s a real mixed bag of excitment of heading out for dinner and seeing friends, along with disappointment that favourite pastimes are still not allowed to open. Here’s what some of you had to say:

Going to the Zoo!!! LG

Heading to the Que Club in Brunswick for the best American BBQ Meats with my mates tonight. Jeremy

Hoping to see my brother and his family and enjoy a meal out somewhere. Claire

Same as last weekend. All the things I usually do are still closed: school swimming, sports, gym etc. Everything closed. Still basically in lockdown. Anonymous

We are planning to go for a dinner and a few drinks! Clare

Dinner out! It’s my birthday on Thursday. Marcus

None of my hobbies have reopened. Still feel like we are in lockdown sadly. Anonymous

Packing the caravan so as soon as we can leave Victoria we are OFF. Six-week holiday booked for seven days from now! Hopefully we can get out and enjoy NSW/ Qld. Who knows, I may never come back! Paul

Off to the pub with a bunch of mates to have beers and a feed. Most of us are still in exams but COVID waits for no one! Just looking forward to getting out and supporting some fellow hospo workers. Erica

Straight to brekky at my fave local! Cass

2.38pm on Jun 11, 2021

Zero active COVID-19 cases in WA for first time since pandemic began

By Heather McNeill

Western Australia has no active coronavirus cases, including in hotel quarantine, for the first time since the pandemic arrived in Australia early last year.

The zero cases tally will likely be fleeting, with 140 infections detected in Perth’s quarantine hotels this year – three of those seeping out into the community through two security guards and a returned traveller.

Nearly half of the cases, 59, were recorded in April alone, and one-third of the total arrived via COVID-stricken India.

Since then, WA has halved its intake of returned international travellers from 1025 a week to 530 and temporarily restricted entry for people in India.

2.17pm on Jun 11, 2021

Face masks should continue forever, says British scientist

I popped this in as a related article earlier but I think it deserves a post of its own. It appeared in The Telegraph in London, and has been slightly adapted for Australian audiences.

A common sight: People wear masks on the street in Melbourne.Joe Armao

Face masks and social distancing measures should continue forever.

That’s the view of Professor Susan Michie, a senior scientist advising the British government.

Professor Michie suggests the mouth and nose-covering measures introduced to tackle the coronavirus pandemic should be retained to help suppress other viruses and boost public health.

The University College London academic, who sits on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) that advises ministers in the US, said that alongside vaccines, test and tracing, and border controls, “people’s behaviour” was a key factor towards controlling the pandemic.

“That is the behaviour of social distancing, of when you’re indoors, making sure there’s good ventilation or if it’s not, wearing face masks, of hands and surface hygiene. We will need to keep this going in the long term and that will be good not only for COVID, but also to reduce others diseases,” Professor Michie, told Britain’s Channel 5.

Interrupted by a follow-up questions about how long she thought the measures should continue, the professor of health psychology said: “I think forever, to some extent.”

Later asked whether she thought the proposal was realistic, she said: “I think there’s lots of different behaviours we’ve changed in our lives. We now routinely wear seat belts, we didn’t use to.

“We now routinely pick up dog poo in the parks, we didn’t use to. When people see that there is a threat and there is something they can do to reduce that... [to] themselves, their loved ones and their communities, what we see now over this last year is people do that.”

It’s busy in a Coburg kitchen that makes ‘home-cooked food for hundreds’

By Michael Fowler

Assembled in a makeshift commercial kitchen on a side street in Melbourne’s north, 15 volunteers with the Muslim Women’s Council of Victoria take on their own “mystery box” every Friday.

They rustle through donations of food from local charities and businesses: spare vegetables, rice, spice packets, sometimes chicken or beef.

Their assignment? Come up with a meal to serve the vulnerable Victorians who visit for Friday lunch in Coburg. Demand has peaked and troughed since mum-of-four Afshan Mantoo, the council’s president, started the initiative at the start of the coronavirus pandemic last March.

Afshan Mantoo (centre) and her group of volunteers preparing food at their kitchen in Coburg.Penny Stephens

“We got up to 300 people visiting us in the second wave. By the start of May we were down to 100. People were honest, they said ‘thank you, we no longer need it, we’re back in jobs and things are looking better’.”

Fast forward to a fortnight ago when the government announced another statewide lockdown and suddenly Ms Mantoo’s team of volunteers were “inundated with phone calls”.

“We’ve doubled the amount of food we serve on Fridays since lockdown restarted. Casual workers and families came to us saying they’d had to suddenly close their business or restaurant.”

Chicken curry, rice, salad, beans and sweet tea were on offer at the community hall in Coburg last week. The volunteers have fine-tuned several recipes over the past 16 months, from pasta bake to pizza to vegetarian and vegan dishes.

“None of us are chefs. It’s home-cooked food for hundreds of people,” Ms Manto said. “Some weeks it’s turning 25 kilograms of meat into a meal, that can be a big challenge!”

How COVID forced the planet’s luckiest raincheck

By Andrew Charlton

The pandemic delayed the global climate summit until November this year – one of the most fortuitous postponements in history, writes Andrew Charlton, a managing director at Accenture and adjunct professor at Macquarie University’s e61 Institute.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Sir David Attenborough.Getty

The pandemic wrought havoc on big events. The Summer Olympics in Tokyo were delayed by a year. The American National Basketball Association sequestered hundreds of athletes inside a “bubble” at Disney World for most of the 2020 season. The Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled for the first time in its 65-year history. But for one event, the delay turned out to be a stroke of luck. In fact, it might even help save the planet.

That event was the United Nations climate change summit in Glasgow. The summit was scheduled for late 2020 – the dying days of the Trump administration. If Donald Trump were in charge, he would have brought a wrecking ball to the party. But COVID-19 bumped the meeting to November 2021, falling under the presidency of Joe Biden. This might be one of the most fortuitous rainchecks in world history.

The Glasgow summit is the crucial meeting to address climate change in this decade. At the breakthrough Paris climate summit five years ago, countries collectively agreed for the first time to try to limit increases in the world’s temperature to 1.5 degrees.

But the dreadful shortcoming of the Paris agreement was that the individual emission-reduction pledges of each country were not enough to meet the global 1.5 degrees goal. It was as if everyone agreed to go dutch for a fancy dinner, but when the money was counted it only covered half the bill.

The vital purpose of the Glasgow summit in 2021 is to close the gap between global ambition and national commitments.

In the extra year the pandemic has allowed, there has been encouraging progress, with many nations coming forward with promises of deeper national emissions cuts.