Good evening, and welcome to our daily roundup of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic in Australia. This is Calla Wahlquist bringing you the main stories on Friday 24 April.
Aged care providers put on notice over restrictions
Scott Morrison has warned aged care providers to loosen restrictions or face stronger regulations that would prevent them from locking down residents without commonwealth approval. The prime minister said aged care providers had previously been told not to restrict residents beyond the measures recommended by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, but despite that warning some homes were not allowing visitors and confining residents to their rooms even when no outbreak had taken place.'
Morrison said there were reasonable circumstances – such as the outbreak at Newmarch House aged care home in NSW, where five people have died – in which to impose stronger restrictions to protect residents. “But more broadly, having people stuck in their rooms, not being able to be visited by their loved ones and carers and other support people, that’s not OK,” he said.
Testing expanded nationally
Every state and territory has now broadened its testing criteria, which is the first of three steps that Morrison said needed to be in place before the national cabinet would consider lifting social distancing restrictions. The other two steps are improved contact tracing and a strengthened local response capability. Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, said arrangements for testing asymptomatic people in frontline occupations were well under way.
It appears likely that restrictions on sport and recreation will be lifted first. The national cabinet on Friday began working on a set of national principles under which professional and community sporting clubs, and individual recreational pursuits, might be allowed to resume. The AFL has said it will announce its season return date next week, while the NRL is still aiming for 28 May.
Death toll rises to 79
Australia recorded just 13 new cases overnight, while the national death toll rose to 79. A 79-year-old woman, who was part of the cluster of cases in north-west Tasmania, died overnight; a passenger from the Artania cruise ship died in hospital in Western Australia; and a fifth resident at Sydney’s Newmarch House aged care facility died on Friday. Health authorities in Victoria, where six new cases were recorded overnight, are investigating a new cluster at a private inpatient psychiatric facility in Melbourne. So far 14 people, including five patients, have tested positive to Covid-19 in relation to this outbreak.
Concerns about US access to tracking data
It will be illegal to access data collected by the proposed contact tracing app for the purpose of anything other than contact tracing, the federal government has said. The data will be housed in an Amazon Web Services server, located in Australia, raising concerns that the US government will be able to access the data because of laws allowing it to access data held by US companies. The government services minister, Stuart Robert, said security would be ensured by the Biosecurity Act, under which it would be a criminal offence to transfer the data to any country other than Australia.
Virgin Australia planes blocked at Perth airport
Virgin Australia owed $6.8bn to 120,000 creditors went it went into administration on Monday, citing the impact of the coronavirus. Federal court judge John Middleton, who gave the administrators until next Thursday to hold a creditors’ meeting, noted he might himself be a creditor, because he had flights booked with the airline for July and was a member of its lounge club. Meanwhile at Perth airport, Virgin planes have been parked in because the airline owes $16m in airfield and terminal use fees. The airport said blocking planes in was “standard practice”.
Fight over schools continues
The federal government is pushing for schools to reopen, with Morrison stressing that there is no requirement under the national health advice for classrooms to ensure students remain 1.5m apart, with four square metres per child, at all times. But the states have all adopted different positions. Public schools in Western Australia will offer face-to-face teaching from Monday, and the WA premier Mark McGowan said parents of independent and Catholic schools that had not resumed face-to-face teaching should request a discount on their school fees.
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