Thursday, March 26, 2020
Testing criteria expands nationally
A broader range of people will be eligible to be tested for COVID-19 from today, after a national panel of medical experts urged the expansion of the current criteria. At a Wednesday night meeting of the National Cabinet, comprising Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders, testing criteria were extended beyond those who had returned from overseas or had direct contact with a confirmed case. Now tests can be undertaken on patients suffering from fever or acute respiratory infection in vulnerable occupations and demographics such as: health, aged, and residential care workers; residents of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; inmates of detention facilities where cases have been reported; residents of hotspots; and hospital patients at the discretion of clinicians. State governments can expand further if they have capacity.
The National Cabinet also agreed to suspend all non-urgent elective surgeries across the country. One consequence will be that 1000 Australians waiting for a kidney transplant must remain on dialysis. The move comes as Guardian Australia reports that not-for-profit hospital network St John of God Healthcare, which runs 24 hospitals and healthcare centres across the country, ceased all non-urgent surgeries this week partly because of depleted stocks of personal protective equipment. The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association’s chief executive, Alison Verhoeven, said equipment supplies were insufficient for hospital needs even before COVID-19 added to demand. “The response is going to be import, local manufacture and triaging of patients so that those most in need get it,” she said. At a virtual meeting with G20 leaders today, Morrison will push for ($) international supply chains to remain open to allow for the “flow of vital medical supplies”. Meanwhile, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Chinese property giant Greenland Group was sending medical supplies to China in bulk earlier in the year when the COVID-19 crisis was concentrated around Wuhan.
University of Sydney modelling of how COVID-19 could spread in Australia indicates it could be controlled within 13 weeks if at least 8 out of 10 Australians stay home as much as possible. The analysis, yet to be rigorously peer-reviewed, indicates that if this number drops to even 7 out of 10, then the virus will continue to spread exponentially. The news comes as New South Wales police are granted the power to issue $1000 fines to people breaking social distancing guidelines. A 68-year-old Queensland man became the ninth person to die from COVID-19 in Australia, with the number of cases rising to 2431 across the country. A member of an expert panel advising the Government's response to COVID-19 has warned Australia should implement an immediate but short lockdown to curb the rise in cases.
The COVID-19 death toll in Spain has overtaken that of China, with a further 738 more fatalities in a 24-hour period taking the country’s total to 3434. The country’s health workers are taking legal action to force authorities to provide suitable protective equipment. In Madrid, an ice rink has been converted into a temporary morgue to cope with demand. Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19, but is only displaying mild symptoms.
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This week
Morrison ruling by ‘Henry VIII’ clauses
New concerns surround the government’s increased use of legislative powers to bypass the parliament and create laws that cannot be amended or overturned. The federal government has embedded special powers in new Covid-19 laws to make unilateral changes to non-pandemic-related legislation, using what are known as ‘Henry VIII clauses’ – named for the unchecked power they involve.
Cold War: ‘Grey zone’ to define relations with China
A strategic defence update highlights ‘coercive tactics’ that skirt the threshold of armed conflict but justify a huge weapons build-up by Australia.
Young people with disabilities still living in aged care
Of the thousands of young people with disabilities living in aged-care facilities, only a few hundred have been moved into the community since the NDIS rollout began in 2013.
The flaws in the COVIDSafe app
When the COVIDSafe contact tracing app launched, tech-savvy experts went looking for flaws. It didn’t take long to find them.
Actor Toby Schmitz’s live wire
For actor Toby Schmitz, there’s nothing like the exhilaration of being on stage, but for the past week he’s replicated some of that feeling in a series of live-streamed performances of Will Eno’s Thom Pain. He speaks about playing Hamlet, the vitality of theatre and keeping his ‘art spark’ alight in the Covid-19 lockdown. “The audience is the final director that teaches you things you would never have thought of. You know, if one person moves their leg it may mean nothing, but if four people do, then you’ve lost them somehow.”
Relocate the Captain Cook statue
What Cook represents, his continuing legacy in First Nations peoples’ dispossession and social injustice, perpetuates suffering. Public spaces such as Hyde Park should be welcoming to all. For this reason, and those further outlined below, the statue of Cook should no longer be displayed in the park, but conserved in a public museum.
Unfailingly, since World War II, the voters in the New South Wales seat of Eden-Monaro have picked the mood of the nation at every federal election. Well, almost every election – 2016 and 2019 were the exceptions. Today those of the seat’s 114,000 registered electors who haven’t voted pre-poll will play the part of political weathervane, if not their more traditional role of bellwether.
Where’s Kathy Jackson when you need her during a pandemic? It’s a cry Gadfly hears frequently as he gallivants around a boarded-up nation, so it’s timely to present a handy updated guide to events. Kathy was the national secretary of the Health Services Union of Australia, the outfit that represents a massive number of people who work in and around hospitals and nursing homes. As far back as August 2015, the Federal Court found Jackson had misappropriated union funds and ordered her to repay $1.4 million. Regrettably, she had been declared bankrupt two months earlier.
The facts of the case are unfathomable, when you lay them out: the real prospect a journalist could be charged for reporting on credible allegations of war crimes committed by Australian troops. But this is where things now stand, with the Australian Federal Police sending a brief of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, detailing a case against ABC journalist Dan Oakes for his reporting on the “Afghan Files”.
Govt tight-lipped on ACCC Murray–Darling Basin water report
Submissions to the ACCC’s inquiry into water trading in the Murray–Darling Basin reveal significant concerns about the possibility of market manipulation.
New law marks end of ‘old Hong Kong ’
Beijing imposes security law on Hong Kong. Donald Trump queried on Russian bounty plot against US troops. Fiji wants billionaires to visit ‘Bula bubble ’. Advertisers boycott Facebook over hate speech and content inciting violence.
22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN
Focusing on the perspectives of First Nations artists from Australia and around the world, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN, invites audiences to fight for greater justice and equality. It’s a triumph.
I still have the dog my mother loved. See that lavender heeler, roan, smiling and straining in the rear-view. See her chasing after my mother, at least a kilometre from home. See that dog flatten herself out as she stretches to reach metal – low and fast and long. See my mother as she tries not to see it, any of it, from the driver’s seat of my older sister’s off-white Commodore. My mother, maybe she’s wearing vanilla oil, a second-hand silk shirt and her favourite cheap Priceline foundation, Crème Caramel. The V8 my mother left in once held my sister in Coles car parks at the edge of town: cheap whiskey, a boy called Bundy, petrol-station condoms. Now it’s being pushed into sixth by my mother’s butter-soft suede loafer, somewhere.
Hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup
For Jenna McCormick, a defection from AFLW to soccer was all about wearing the national colours. Now, as Australia and New Zealand win the right to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023, the green and gold icing is really on the cake.
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