COVID-19 News And Updates

After four months off, Victoria’s premier insists he won’t engage with the opposition’s comments about his accident Daniel Andrews is beginning his first week back at work at the biggest of Victoria’s big builds and with the energy of a politician about to launch an election campaign. The $11bn metro tunnel project is running $2.7bn over budget but the major tunnelling work is now complete, and it has just ticked over 30m hours of work. Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian

With Perth and the Peel region in stage one restrictions, here are the current coronavirus hotspots and Covid-19 public exposure sites in Western Australia and what to do if you’ve visited them Follow our Covid LIVE blog for the latest updates NSW Covid restrictions ; Qld restrictions ; Australia travel restrictions Vaccine tracker ; Download the free Guardian app ; Get our morning email briefing Authorities in Western Australia have released a list of coronavirus hotspots and public exposure sites in WA visited by a confirmed case of Covid-19. Here are the current coronavirus hotspots, Covid exposure sites, venues and case location alerts and what to do if you’ve visited them. Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian

A chasm is emerging, particularly among parents, over how to deal with Covid risk in New York There is a new, and presumably temporary, pastime in New York, which is to list the ways in which the city is back. Exhibit one: calling your favourite neighbourhood restaurant for a table and being told, flatly: “We can get you in at 5pm or 9pm.” Exhibit two: below 14 th Street, queues round the block to get into a tiny space for the privilege of paying $25 for a double gin and tonic. And exhibit three: an assertion by the city’s major corporations, and after 18 months of apparent humility in the face of employee distress, that staff need to get their asses back in the office. This week, Morgan Stanley became the latest company in the city to lift pandemic restrictions on in-person work, providing employees and visitors to its offices are vaccinated . This is, increasingly, a requirement by the city’s biggest private employers; earlier this month, Goldman Sachs announced that employees wou...

Newcastle a ‘viable alternative’ to Sydney for Game Three Melbourne hub for AFL teams shapes as strong possibility NSW want State of Origin III to still be played on home turf even if it cannot be held in Sydney as the NRL weighs up the fate of that fixture and the home-and-away season. NRL bosses spent Monday analysing options for the immediate future, ahead of the most important commission meeting since the game restarted last May on Tuesday. Sydney clubs are still preparing as if they will play at home this weekend in front of no crowds, well aware they could still be moved elsewhere after Tuesday’s meeting. But regardless of that outcome, they are already feeling the pinch of the city’s first lockdown in 12 months. Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian

The NSW premier, who has so far avoided blaming the federal government, says more should be done to make vaccines easily accessible State and territory leaders are becoming increasingly tetchy over the national pandemic response, with the Morrison government drawing fire from even its traditional allies, as most of Australia feels the effects of another Covid outbreak. Unlike many of her Labor counterparts, the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian has so far resisted turning blame to the Morrison government, beyond pointing out the state’s desire for more vaccines. Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian

South Africa re-introduces curfew, alcohol ban; all of Italy mask free and low risk from Monday; Australia’s Covid response team holds urgent meeting amid outbreak South Africa tightens Covid rules as ‘devastating wave’ gathers pace UK military chiefs self-isolate after head of army catches Covid Delta Covid variant may be edging race against vaccines US fight against Covid threatened by growing vaccine gap in the south See all our coronavirus coverage 6.36am BST All of Italy became a mask-free, “low-risk” zone for coronavirus Monday, marking a dramatic milestone for the first European country to be hit by the global pandemic in February 2020, AFP reports. In a decree that took effect Monday, the health ministry for the first time classified each of Italy’s 20 regions as “white”, signifying low risk, under the country’s colour-coded classification system that evaluates Covid-19 risk. 6.20am BST Authorities in South Africa have imposed new restrictions in a last ditch attem...

Misinformation and access issues combined with patriarchal social norms fuelling disparity in distribution across most states Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Deep-rooted structural inequalities and patriarchal values are to blame for India’s worrying Covid vaccine gender gap, campaigners and academics have warned. As of 25 June, of the 309m Covid vaccine doses delivered since January 2021, 143m were administered to women compared with nearly 167m to men, according to CoWin , India’s national statistics site – a ratio of 856 doses given to women for every 1,000 given to men. The difference is not accounted for by India’s gender imbalance of 924 women to 1,000 men . Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian