The Therapeutic Goods Administration has yet to approve the US vaccine, but Health Secretary Brendan Murphy said it would arrive in Australia by the third quarter of the year.“We might see some by Quarter 3, which would be my recollection, it’s September, but it could even be August. All (Novavax are) saying is that they’re confident of giving us some,” he said.It comes as Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly said there will be no foreseeable change to the existing quarantine program despite a risk of infection leaking into the community.Prof Kelly’s comments came after a heated exchange with Western Australian Greens MP Rachel Siewert, who accused the federal government of inadequate hotel quarantine protection strategies.In Tuesday night’s Senate Select Committee hearing into the government’s response to the pandemic, Ms Siewert asked why federal hotel transmission guidelines hadn’t been overhauled.Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the measures had been extensively reviewed, and numerous forms of protection worked like a “Swiss cheese model” in stopping the virus from spreading.“There can be holes in each of the protections, but as long as they don’t line up, you’ll be fine,” Professor Kelly said.“There’s a whole range of things you can do to protect people in hotel quarantine, including arrival numbers, pre-departure testing, good hotel infrastructure, ventilation, post-arrival testing, red and green zones, training and education for staff, people who do continuous auditing, hand hygiene and finally masks, as well as our new weapon which is the use of vaccination.Prof Kelly continued: “So that’s the sort of model we’re looking at – ways you can protect people and decrease the chance of transmission in quarantine and transmission into the community.”Department of Health secretary Brendan Murphy reiterated there were broad guidelines that were “adequate” in managing the virus in hotel quarantine.“Well it doesn’t seem very adequate to me given that we’ve just come out of lockdown here in WA,” Ms Siewert said.“I’m sorry, we’ve had it happen in multiple states – they don’t seem to be adequate.”Professor Kelly said there would always be infections in hotel quarantine.“We expect people who come into quarantine to have an infection and we try our best to keep it out, but there will always be infection,” he said.The comments come as the federal government faces mounting pressure to assist the states in managing quarantine, following outbreaks that leaked out of hotels in NSW, Victoria and most recently WA.Both Victoria and NSW have requested the commonwealth come up with an alternative form of quarantine, claiming hotels in the city weren’t effective in controlling the virus.Despite calls for the government to establish more open air Howard Springs-type facilities, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has publicly backed the current system.Professor Kelly told the Senate hearing the government currently had “no plans” to look at alternative facilities.“Hotel quarantine was one of the key decisions made early in the pandemic to protect Australians and it’s been successful,” he said.“Of course there has been some incursions and they’ve been widely publicised, but in general terms it’s been very safe. And we’ve continued to learn how to make it more successful and safe as we’ve gone on.”URGENT VIRUS ALERT FOR 18 SUBURBSThousands of households across Melbourne’s eastern and outer northern suburbs are being urged to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 after traces of the virus were detected in nearby sewer catchments.Victoria’s health department said it was “most likely” the detections were due to a person shedding the virus after the infectious period, given the current prolonged period of no community transmission in Victoria. But it could also be due to a person living in or travelling through the area in the early active infectious phase, health officials warned. People who live in or have visited these areas – and who have or develop COVID symptoms – are “strongly encouraged” to get tested. Eastern suburbs catchment April 20-24Persons visiting or residing in Balwyn, Balwyn North, Blackburn, Blackburn North, Box Hill, Box Hill North, Bulleen, Doncaster, Doncaster East, Donvale, Mitcham, Mont Albert, Mont Albert North, Nunawading, Templestowe Lower, between April 20 to April 24, 2021. Outer northern suburbs catchment April 17-22Persons visiting or residing in Epping, South Morang, Wollert, between April 17-22, 2021. Victoria recorded four new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday – all in returned travellers and all in hotel quarantine. The cases were a male and a female in their teens, a woman in her 20s and a man in his 30s.It marked the 60th day in a row where no new cases had been acquired locally in Victoria.AUSSIE OLYMPIANS’ JABS FAST-TRACKEDAustralian athletes and support staff have been fast-tracked in Australia’s vaccination queue as the Tokyo Olympic Games looms.With the event set to commence on July 23, National Cabinet today agreed that approximately 2050 Australians identified by the Australian Olympic Committee and Paralymics Australia would receive the COVID-19 jab under priority group 1b.“We want to see our athletes head to Tokyo to compete and then return to Australia safely,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said.Pfizer’s vaccination will be made available, as well as doses of AstraZeneca for those over 50 years old.“While vulnerable Australians remain an absolute priority as the vaccine rollout continues, National Cabinet understands the pressure our high-performance athletes have been facing as the Tokyo Games draw closer,” Sport Minister Richard Colbeck said.“This will be a very different Olympics and Paralympics, but our athletes deserve the opportunity to compete.” NED-1859 State of our bordersWA QUARANTINE CASES SET TO ‘GROW SIGNIFICANTLY’Mark McGowan says he expects COVID case numbers in West Australia’s hotel quarantine program will “grow significantly” after four people that arrived on board a plane-load of travellers from India tested COVID positive.The premier revealed there were no local cases reported in the state overnight but four people tested positive in quarantine. The positive cases were three males, two in their 30s, one in his 50s, and a female in her 30s that arrived in Perth from Kuala Lumpur on flight MH125 on Saturday, April 24. An additional case linked to the flight is under investigation, he said.Mr McGowan revealed 78 of 79 passengers on the fight had been in India recently, sparking fears of an influx in quarantine cases.“Our expectation is the number of positive cases from this group of people will grow and potentially grow significantly,” Mr McGowan said on Tuesday.WA has 2230 people in hotel quarantine and 30 cases of COVID so far.Mr McGowan urged locals to get tested, saying additional exposure sites were added to the riverside suburb of Applecross.“Testing has dropped off since Sunday. I urge everyone to continue to get tested. If you’re feeling unwell or you’ve been to any of the exposure sites, get tested. This is extremely important,” he said.He also repeated calls to suspend for Australia to suspend all travel to and from India“We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, India is the epicentre of death and destruction as we speak. And I don’t think there is any need to go to India, I don’t,” he said.ONE LOCAL CASE IN NSWNSW logged one new locally acquired coronavirus infection after a returned traveller previously believed to have acquired the virus overseas was reclassified as a local case.Health officials now believe the person was infected with the highly transmissible South African variant of coronavirus while staying in the Mercure Hotel in Sydney‘s CBD.“An investigation into how COVID-19 transmission occurred between returned travellers who had been in quarantine at the Mercure Hotel has led NSW Health to reclassify one case, previously reported as overseas acquired, as locally acquired,” NSW Health wrote in a statement on Tuesday morning.The person stayed in a room adjacent to two family members who have also tested positive for the South African strain.The number of hotel infections have remained high over the past week.There were 12 new overseas-acquired cases in hotel quarantine in the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday.In the seven days before that, there was a total of 46 overseas acquired cases, with a spike on April 23, when 18 new ones were recorded.There has been an increasing prevalence of mutant strains of coronavirus, labelled “variants of concern” by NSW authorities.In the latest weekly COVID-19 report, the health department wrote that 41 per cent of overseas acquired cases were diagnosed with one of three variants of concern that originated in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, respectively.Between November 29 last year and last Thursday when the report was issued, 584 returned travellers had been diagnosed with coronavirus.Of those, 123 people, or 23 per cent, had a variant of concern.There were no other new locally acquired cases reported on Tuesday.STATE’S SHOCK RISE IN HOTEL QUARANTINE CASESSouth Australia recorded 14 new infections in hotel quarantine.The state’s health department released the concerning figure on Monday afternoon, saying all cases were returned travellers in medi-hotels.The positive infections include a male and female in their 20s, four females in their 30s, a male in his 40s and four children — two boys and two girls.It brings the state’s total number of cases to 719 with 32 currently active.The high figure comes after SA’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier said health authorities were “concerned” with the increasing number of active coronavirus cases.She said they were in talks with the federal government about the number of overseas arrivals the state could handle.It came after the state recorded nine new hotel quarantine cases on Thursday.“This puts me on edge and also members of my staff to make sure we’re still protecting SA,” she said.“So we need to make sure all of our processes in our quarantine stream and medi-hotel are as tight as possible.“We feel that we’re getting near capacity in terms of our concerns around safety.”SA Health also advised on Monday that anyone who travelled into the state from the Perth or the Peel region since April 17 should go get tested and remain in isolation until they received a negative result.STATE’S PLAN TO BRING BACK FOREIGN STUDENTSVictoria would accept more than 100 international students next month under a plan in which new arrivals would quarantine in a set-up similar to the Australian Open tennis tournament. The Premier’s office released its letter to the Prime Minister’s office where Acting Premier James Merlino outlined details of the scheme. From May 24, Victoria would accept 120 students per week who would all serve mandatory quarantine in an “economic cohort quarantine hotel” – a dedicated hotel for student arrivals separate to other international arrivals.The program would operate on an industry/user pays model, with relevant industries/sectors (e.g. tertiary education institutions, stage and screen productions, major event organisers) providing funding to support operating costs, the letter also read. The new arrivals would pay more than the $3000 fortnightly fee currently charged to one adult.Mr Merlino said international student arrivals would “support Victoria’s and Australia’s economic recovery”.The arrangement is not set to impact the state’s international arrival cap of 1000 arrivals per week, with the students expected to arrive on commercial passenger flights.In his letter, Mr Merlino asked the federal government to approve Victoria’s plan and fast-track visas for the new arrivals.Mr Merlino also said the “highest levels of safety” would be maintained across the program.Staff tasked to the economic cohort quarantine hotel would have received “at least their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine”.Students would also be subjected to the same coronavirus testing regimen as in the standard quarantine hotel scheme.WA LOCKDOWN ENDS, MASKS REMAIN Western Australia’s three-day lockdown is set to end, but masks will be compulsory until Saturday.“The short three day lockdown has done the job it was designed to do. It was a circuit breaker we needed to limit community spread and keep our community healthy,” he said. WA Premier Mark McGowan made the announcement, saying schools will resume but students and teachers will need to wear a mask except for primary school students.All public venues including hospitality, entertainment and retail can reopen, except for the casino and nightclubs and indoor fitness venues. The four square metre capacity rule will be in place for this period only, with a limit of 20 patrons not including staff. “I know this makes it tough for many businesses, I acknowledge that it is important we remain cautious and ease restrictions in line … so we can get back to normal as soon as possible … for the next four days weddings and funerals can apply for an exemption to have 100 people as they did during the lockdown period, community support and training can proceed with players and officials but no spectators,” he said. Visitors to hospital aged care and disability aged care are restricted to compassionate grounds only.From 12.01am on Tuesday, people can travel out of Perth and Peel regions to other parts of WA, however they must wear a mask. “If you are currently, sorry, if you currently are in another region, and have been in Perth and Peel since April 17 you will need to continue to do a mask from tomorrow onwards,” he said.NSW TELLS WA: PULL YOUR WEIGHTNSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said she would be “disappointed” if Western Australia decided not to take it’s full share of returning travellers in need of quarantine.The federal government has accepted a Western Australian request to halve the amount of returning travellers the state is expected to put in hotel isolation until May 30, as the state battles a COVID-19 outbreak in Perth. But Premier Mark McGowan said over the weekend he would be “reluctant” to return to the full 1025 people per week capacity that the state had previously committed to. Asked about his comments today, Ms Berejiklian said that state and territory leaders should “get on with it and do the job”.“It is really important for all states to really pull their weight,” she said.“We have to unfortunately, in a pandemic, accept these things are going to happen, get on top of them as soon as we can, deal with them as best we can, but know there is always going to be that risk and challenge. “Every time you do have an outbreak or a challenge it is not really healthy to have these blame games.”She said if other jurisdictions didn’t honour their commitments, it would put extra pressure on her state.“I would be very disappointed if, because of an incident, a premier decided they didn’t want to take as many people – welcome as many people home – because it does put extra pressure on NSW.” Mr McGowan said in his remarks on Sunday his government would need Commonwealth help to continue to meet its quarantine goal. “If the Commonwealth is unable to assist with proper quarantine facilities, I am reluctant to return to the full 1025 per week cap,” Mr McGowan said. “That weekly number of returning residents is not something that can continue long-term without proper Commonwealth quarantine facilities being used.”Health Minister Greg Hunt said he had “full confidence in all states and territories to manage hotel quarantine”.“I will quote another West Australian, the Health Minister yesterday who said when asked about their hotel quarantine said ‘We take learning from every part of this pandemic. We have learned since it came to our attention in late January 20, 2020 and we are continuing to learn more about it”. In their case they were talking about their mitigation efforts in the hotels and reducing any potential infection risk but across the country, every day we adapt,” Mr Hunt said.Defence Minister Peter Dutton rejected the idea while speaking to ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, saying neither air force bases nor Christmas Island were “fit for purpose”.“If you are talking about tented facilities, which you would need, our air bases don‘t hold thousands of people,” Mr Dutton said.TELEHEALTH EXTENDED FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHSHealth Minister Greg Hunt has announced the telehealth program will be extended until the end of the year.The program Was supposed to end on June 30 but will be extended to December 31 at a cost of $144 million.“We have already seen over 54 million telehealth consultations in Australia. Arguably the largest single change in the delivery of Medicare in the last 30 years and it’s permanent,” Mr Hunt said.“We have in the context of COVID changed the way we deliver medicine in Australia. And so made health more accessible for people in rural and remote areas, more accessible for those home bound for whatever reason, all of these things come together.”– with Emily Cosenza, Anthony Piovesan
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