Extension of Sydney lockdown to be announced as Victoria lockdown eases – as it happened

With that news, here’s a reminder of what was said earlier today.

The premier Gladys Berejiklian said this morning that August was likely the month when “everyone comes forward to get the jab”.

The lockdown will now of course extend through much of August.

“Vaccination is the key to our freedom,” she said earlier today. “Getting jabs in arms is a key part of our strategy ... I want August to be the month where everyone comes forward to get the jab.”

Rumours of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney going into lockdown due to an outbreak are reportedly untrue.

We understand that the reports of a lockdown came after a mix up, where normal processes at the hospital for when a Covid-positive person arrives was mistaken for a hospital-wide lockdown.

We are still waiting on official confirmation from NSW Health and from the RPA themselves, however it is understood there is no emergency there at the moment.

The SMH is also reporting that rapid antigen testing of year 12 students will be implemented so they can return to face-to-face learning in school. There are no plans for other school years.

Meanwhile, Crown Resorts decided that shortly after 6pm would be a great time to tell the stock exchange that it has paid the Victorian government $61m after underpaying casino tax on its Melbourne money pit.

As the Victorian royal commission into the troubled gambling empire revealed, Crown has for years been incorrectly deducting things like bonuses it gave to regular patrons from its calculation of its gross profit from gamblers. This artificially reduced the amount of tax it paid Victoria, which was calculated based on the gross gambling profit number.

The amount is made up of “$37 million over the period commencing in the 2012 financial year to date relating to the incorrect deduction of certain bonus rewards provided to patrons in connection with play on Crown Melbourne’s electronic gaming machines,” plus penalty interest of $24m, Crown said in a statement.

There may be more to come - counsel assisting the royal commission estimated the total amount owing could be as much as $480m at a hearing last week and Crown itself says it “is continuing its review of other aspects of casino tax payments and will update the market once the review is complete”.

In a late change, 18-year-old Mary Fowler is starting for the Matildas against the USA in their final group match. Huge!

You can follow the match here:

The Matildas game against Sweden on Sunday is officially the most-watched women’s sporting event in Australian TV history.

In other Olympics news, the Matildas are playing against the USA in half an hour (6pm AEST).

Australian legend Jian Fang Lay has lost her third round match in the table tennis, in a narrow defeat to Germany’s world number 12 Han Ying.

Lay made history this year by heading to her sixth Olympics for Australia, becoming a joint record holder with equestrian Mary Hanna for most appearances by an Australian female athlete.

The 48-year-old had to struggle through homeschooling two teenagers in Victoria last year, and had to play a qualifying match to reach round one in Tokyo.

Lay, who is ranked 156 in the world, beat Italy’s Debora Vivarelli, and Poland’s Qian Li (ranked 35).

Against Ying, she lost 11-9, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8 in an extremely tight game.

No Australian has ever progressed past the third round in the table tennis, but Lay came very close to the round of 16.

Australian legend Jian Fang Lay has just called a quick time out in the table tennis at the Olympics.

She lost the first two games by the narrowest of margins to Germany’s Han Ying (ranked 12th in the world), and is essentially even again in the third game.

Unfortunately this is not being aired on the TV, and even online, there is no commentary, as viewers point out.

Even though Victoria is coming out of lockdown tomorrow, some theatre shows (and the people who work on them) aren’t – at least for a little while.

The Australian share market has broken two records today – just a day after it already beat the previous record.

The ASX200 index reached an all-time high just 23 minutes after the market opened, and then beat that again later in the day, AAP reports.

The index set a new record of 7447.9 points today, before closing slightly down at 7431.4.

It comes after it set a record high yesterday as well.

Approximately 15 minutes until Jian Fang Lay is scheduled to play.

An important piece from Brazil.

Flávia Milhorance spoke to the family of Adriana Midori Takara, who at 38 and with no pre-existing health conditions became the youngest person to die during the latest Sydney outbreak of Covid-19.

“She was always a sweet, smiling, kind, gentle, caring girl. She was very close to the family, she was a daughter that no parent would have anything to complain about.”

Jian Fang Lay, the joint record holder for most Olympics attended by an Australian female athlete, is playing again at 4.30pm today (AEST).

And in more on the brewing US-Australia rivalry in the pool in Tokyo, here’s this dispatch from Kieran Pender:

American swim star Lilly King has criticised the media for allegedly distorting her words and said that her Australian rivals, who are currently equal with the United States in the swimming medal tally with three golds each, are ‘swimming just fine’.

King courted controversy before Tokyo 2020 when she expressed her belief that the American women could win every individual gold medal at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. With five individual medals race for the women held so far, the Australians have secured two golds, while the USA, Canada and Japan have one apiece.

But King dismissed a journalist’s question on Wednesday after she claimed bronze in the women’s 100m breaststroke.

“I feel like that quote has been twisted ... and I’ve commented on that since,” she said.

“I said I believed that the Americans could win every single individual gold medal. All I was saying was that I believed in my teams and that I think we have a good shot at swimming well. But that was twisted. The Aussies are swimming just fine.”

In a shock result, Naomi Osaka has been knocked out of the singles tennis at the Tokyo Olympics.

The Japanese star lost in the third round to Marketa Vondrousova.

You can follow our Olympics live blog here:

Wild weather is set to sweep across Victoria on the first day out of lockdown.

Severe storms and blizzard conditions will lash Victoria as a cold front crosses the state, AAP reports.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning about destructive winds on Tuesday afternoon, with wind gusts of 98km/h winds already recorded at Mt Buller.

Senior forecaster Matthew Thomas said the blustery conditions will ramp up on Wednesday as “squally” westerly winds cross the state.

He said the severe weather warning will be extended to metropolitan Melbourne as wild winds are expected to move through the city on Wednesday afternoon, with gusts up to 100km/h expected in some parts.

Severe thunderstorms and hail could hit southern and northern parts of Victoria and the Wimmera.

Thomas also said “significant snowfall” is expected in the north-east alpine areas on Wednesday, however destructive winds of up to 125 km/h and blizzard conditions will also hit alpine peaks.

A couple who claimed the ABC portrayed them as abandoning their surrogate child with a disability in Ukraine will have to pay the broadcaster’s legal costs after withdrawing their defamation case.

Matthew Etnyre and his wife Irmgard Pagan sued over a 2019 Foreign Correspondent episode titled Motherland and a website article titled Damaged babies and broken hearts: Ukraine’s commercial surrogacy industry leaves a trail of disasters.

Justice Wendy Abraham in June ordered them to pay $100,000 within 28 days as security for the ABC’s legal costs.

The federal court proceedings would be stayed until the security was paid.

Their lawyer on Tuesday told the judge his clients were unable to raise the money and would not be continuing with the case, but asked they not be ordered to pay the ABC’s costs to date.

Firefighters from NSW and WA are flying to Canada to help put out wildfires raging through the country, during a summer of record-breaking temperatures.

Meanwhile, thousands of homes are without power in WA after rain and damaging winds hit the state yesterday, continuing into today.

The ABC has just interviewed the caretaker of the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, near Augusta.

He told them: “It was pretty wild. I slept through the worst of it, but I did wake up a few times.

“It was pretty cyclonic, but awesome.”

We’re still waiting on the WA health minister, Roger Cook, to front the state’s press conference today.

Here is an illuminating graph of NSW’s Covid-19 cases by isolation status.

The WA press conference will be in approximately 20 minutes – at 12.15pm AWST/2.15pm AEST

On Tuesday Labor announced its plan to introduce a Senate bill requiring ministers to explain, in real time, when they reject recommendations from their department, in a bid to prevent rorting of grants programs.

The independent senator Rex Patrick is on board – and now One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts has expressed in principle support. A spokeswoman for Roberts told Guardian Australia:

Senator Roberts supports this in principle. He will await details of Labor’s bill before a final position as both parties have form for rorting taxpayer funds.

Wozzahs! That was a full-on couple of hours!

After that, I’m off to go stare blankly into the middle distance but don’t worry because the brilliant Naaman Zhou is here to take the baton.

See you tomorrow!

A German-based conspiracy group helped to drive a series of anti-lockdown protests across Australia which saw dozens of people arrested and hundreds fined after violent clashes with police.

Police arrested more than 60 people and fined 107 more after a crowd of about 3,000 gathered in Sydney on Saturday to protest against the city’s lockdown.

Coordinated by a loose network of conspiracy-laced groups, including some with links to the far right, rallies took place in cities across Australia and the globe, with violent clashes between demonstrators and police in Sydney.

Protests against Covid restrictions have become common throughout the pandemic. While billed as peaceful protests, police said they were surprised by “the level of violence that people were prepared to use”.

You can read the full, and fascinating, article by Christopher Knaus and Michael McGowan below.

Victorian press conference:

Here is that amazing Olympic F-bomb in all its glory.

Want a full rundown of Kaylee McKeown’s amazing backstroke win at the Tokyo games?

Well look no further than the fantastic Kieran Pender’s coverage down below:

I think it’s worth noting that NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has been going pretty hard on the “you could be responsible for the deaths of your loved one” line today.

Here is what she had to say when asked if the government has been doing enough to get the Covid-19 message through to greater Sydney residents.

We are seeing, we are starting to see some positive changes in behaviour between household movements but more needs to be done and that is why I think it is so horrible when we need to report a death, it is awful.

I just think about my own circumstances and how I would react if someone very close to me got the disease and died from it. And the message is starting to get through that if you risk your own health, that is one thing. But then to take it home to your parents and your siblings is just something none of us want to imagine.

And I think that message is starting to get through.

Dr Roger Lord, a specialist advisor to the Therapeutic Goods Administration on infectious diseases, has spoken to the Australian Science Media Centre about why fully vaccinated people are still catching Covid-19. Lord says:

Infections with Covid-19 are on the rise again in many parts of the world. These breakthrough infections are not a failure but rather a limitation of the available Covid-19 vaccines, none have 100% efficacy.

Additionally, no correlates of protection [the level of antibody concentration and/or T cell activation required for protection] currently exist to indicate what concentration is required to indicate long-term protection, whether this was achieved in a given individual or how long this will last. Vaccination itself does not equal immunisation.

It is not surprising that in countries where higher vaccination rates exist that more vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals have contracted Covid-19. If for example, 80% of a population is completely vaccinated and 20% unvaccinated then statistically more vaccinated people may contract Covid-19. The important message is that while an individual may still contract Covid-19 following a vaccination regime, the symptoms experienced will not be as severe and less likely to cause hospitalisation. This is certainly the case in the United Kingdom where vaccination rates have been high.

The number of Covid-19 cases in the UK is rising due to the emergence of more transmissible Delta variant, however the number of individuals requiring hospitalisation remains low among vaccinated individuals.

Associate professor Paul Griffin, director of infectious diseases at Mater Health Services in Queensland, said breakthrough infections should not be seen as taking away from the benefits of vaccines.

While we know as a generalisation protection from death is near 100%, and symptomatic infection in the order of 70 to 90%, they do also reduce the chance of getting infected ...

Given it’s not 100% however, by definition this means people who are vaccinated can still be infected. These breakthrough infections are likely to be much less severe than they would have been had the individual not been vaccinated and they are also less likely to pass it on to others.

It can be confusing when the number of people vaccinated goes up, the number of cases in people fully vaccinated will also go up even though it’s much less than it would have been had the vaccination rate not been high and as a proportion, it’s much lower. People who are fully vaccinated in some countries are also a little more likely to get infected as they are very rightly allowed more freedoms than their unvaccinated counterparts. They also may have a reduction in their perceived risk and may then be less likely therefore to use other strategies to protect themselves such as social distancing, hand hygiene and wear masks for example.”

So all the press conferences have finished, but ABC’s main channel is playing the NSW press conference, which means so I can double back and bring you some more substantial quotes from the NSW leadership.

Hazzah!

Victorian press conference:

Premier Daniel Andrews is just winding up the press conference in Melbourne. Right towards the end he is asked about the federal government’s CovidSafe contact tracing app and whether it has picked up any cases in Victoria.

He says:

I would stand to be corrected but I don’t think we have had any cases in Victoria, if we had it would be an extremely small number that are picked up by the app.

Andrews is then asked whether he thinks it is worth people still using it.

He gives a wry smile:

I would always encourage people to download the app. I will make no comments further about the app. Because today is a positive day and we should all be very pleased because of our determination and hard work of everyone, particularly our contact tracers, we can come out of this.

Hmmm, this is interesting. Victorian chief health officer Prof Brett Sutton has conceded that the infectiousness of the Delta variant may bump up the level of vaccination required to reach herd immunity.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, the ACT releasing their daily case number just an hour after NSW is really rubbing salt on the wound.

SA lockdown:

And one more on that cheeky f-bomb.

National treasure areas.

Covid-19 disaster payments for those in the Adelaide hotspot has been confirmed by the federal government.

NSW press conference:

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the state will not be ditching HSC final year exams for students in affected areas, but flagged there would be announcements to come.

Can I say the New South Wales education departments have been doing outstanding work in making sure that we have good plans in place to support our HSC students.

Can I please assure year 12 students and their families that we will be making announcements imminently about making sure they all know what they can look forward to, and also to know that all of them will be receiving an HSC, based on [their] hard work.

All the hard work that they’ve been doing will be rewarded. So please don’t stress if you’re a year 12 student or your family ...

I’ll have something to say about that positively in the next few days.

Victorian press conference:

Andrews says keeping the new restrictions for two weeks was:

... important for a range of reasons. And the other thing is there’s a bit of a balance here between rules that literally change every few days and trying to settle into a pattern. When it’s safe, we’ll make the changes. I’m not foreshadowing any further easing before two weeks but we’ll review this every day.

These are the rules for two weeks and if we can ... do better, we’d look at that but we’re not expecting we’ll be able to change because we won’t have advice to do that.

Longer term, Andrews says that it is hard to say how much longer the state will live under the threat of lockdowns, given the spluttering federal government’s vaccination program. He conjures up a magical warehouse stocked with tens of millions of doses of vaccines to explain (?) the situation.

Until a significant majority have had two shots of vaccine, this is with us and to a certain extent – and I’ve tried to be very frank about this when others have not necessarily wanted to go into this space – but I’ve tried to be frank. If we get 75% of people through the vaccination program that will mean across Australia the population of Victoria, Israel, Singapore and Ireland would not have had the jab. Therefore, you’ve got to be careful that they don’t get sick and they overrun your hospital system.

I wish we were doing this press conference in a warehouse that was full of tens of millions of doses of Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax, whatever, right? I wish that was the case. That is not the case. So, yes, some of these restrictions are going to be with us and the risk of further lockdowns will be with us until we get the vast majority of Victorians and Australians through the vaccination program.

NSW press conference:

Just doubling back on NSW for a second, there is significant concerns in the state today with two nurses and a student nurse testing postive to Covid-19 at Liverpool hospital.

Here is what NSW Health’s Jeremy McAnulty had to say about it.

As the chief health officer mentioned yesterday there’s been an outbreak in Liverpool hospital.

Two nurses and a student nurse who worked at Liverpool have tested positive to Covid-19. Four staff, in the geriatric and vascular wards, last week, eight patients had tested positive to Covid-19 ... and are in isolation, with contact tracing staff is under way to identify other impacts.

He was also transferred from Liverpool hospital to Fairfield hospital from one of the wards has also tested positive for patients have been identified as close contacts, and are in isolation in contact tracing continues.

Victorian press conference:

Premier Daniel Andrews has made repeated reference to the situation in NSW, while also being at pains to say he is not lecturing NSW. But it is clear there is some frustration that the NSW government has not followed the blueprint that Andrews used to overcome Victoria’s second wave.

I said that any state, I would think they’d look at what we did and have a long, hard think about whether they should do that. That’s just because we had the biggest and most painful and most tragic wave and we got the cases down to zero. I’m not making any – I’m saying nothing more or less than that. What they do is a matter for them but they are making decisions that go well beyond their own state. Well beyond their own state and I reckon if we’d had ... Look, if we’d not applied the settings we applied last year, we wouldn’t have got to zero.

South Australian premier Steven Marshall has also just said he is not considering opening up their border to Victoria yet.

Melbourne’s art scene is still taking a hit, despite slightly eased restirctions.

South Australian press conference:

Premier Steven Marshall confirms no new cases were recorded in the state overnight. He’s giving everyone an enormous gee-up for getting through it.

We’re not going straight back to where we were, and I’ve been messaging this for quite some time. We don’t want a relapse, we only want to do this once.

Marshall says masks will remain mandatory for high risk settings including care facilities, hairdressers, and other indoor public places, and will be strongly recommended for workplaces and schools in some cases.

Sport training can resume as of tomorrow, Marshall says. The new restrictions will be in place for a week.

It’s everyone’s favourite time of the press conference bonkers hour.

Here is Nick Evershed’s graph breaking down the NSW case numbers based on isolation status.

NSW press conference:

NSW Health’s Jeremy McAnulty has confirmed the woman in her 80s who died at home in Pendle Hill has attended an unauthorised family gathering of 50 people which has seen significant spread of the virus across households.

It’s understood the family had gathered to grieve together.

NSW press conference.

Reporter:

Are we are going to see an explosion in transmission as a result of the weekend protests? When are you expecting that that could happen, or you know if we get to Saturday, and that isn’t the explosion of cases, does that mean we’ve avoided a bigger outbreak?

McAnulty:

Whenever we get people in crowds who shouting or yelling, no social distancing that is a very dangerous situation for the transmission of Covid. So it depends whether it’s somebody with Covid went and therefore transmitted.

Now we don’t know if somebody attended Covid or not. So far we’ve seen no indication of any cases associated with that, but we’re looking very closely at the cases..

It is not likely to go and get a test themselves given their position on the project we would urge anybody who was at that protest [to].

NSW press conference:

One of the main areas of concern in NSW today is the Campsie shopping centre, with a vast quarantine order on all those who have shopped there over an 11-day period.

NSW Health is calling on anyone who was there at any time between 14 and 24 July to get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days regardless of the result.

Berejiklian has been grilled over how this situation can occur:

Reporter:

The Campsie shopping centre and 11 days stretch of a closed contact level exposure event.

Is that just one person, and how could it last for 11 days? Is that proof that this outbreak is beyond the contact tracing?

Berejiklian:

Can I say firstly that, of course, resources are always stretched during an outbreak, but I’m grateful for the support we’ve received from our contact tracers but also the external support we received.

And of course, the public should not be concerned about our ability to resource what we need. However, I will ask Dr McAnulty to, to speak about their specific cases he has the details.

McAnulty:

Campsie, there is a community where we had a lot of cases and sometimes it’s difficult to tease out, you know what the source of the infection was versus where people are just travelling when they’re infectious, but over time it was clear that the number of cases had visited the shopping centre there and there was transmission identified a number of shops.

So as a supermarket worker that [visits] numerous shops in this shopping mall in a situation where we’ve got numerous cases in the community and you know how many people were exposed as a result of those positive cases in that shopping tonight I don’t have the exact number but it’d be many, many people in the community.

So what we do is we interview cases we identified where they’ve been in that, that period, and then inevitably when somebody is exposed. That takes some days to get sick, and then we interview them, and there’s always a period between their exposure and identifying publicly and us understanding where they might have acquired.

NSW press conference:

Here are the NSW hospitalisation numbers for today from NSW Health.

There are currently 169 Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital, with 46 people in intensive care, 19 of whom require ventilation.

NSW press conference:

Berejiklian has been asked if the movement of the virus into western Sydney means lockdown rules should tighten there.

Berejiklian has flagged there will be announcements, possibly as early as tomorrow.

I think what’s important to note is that it’s been a good time for the health experts to give us good data on how the virus is transmitting and in which way.

And consistently we’ve seen critical workplaces and also households be the main generators of the virus transmitting and they’re the issues we need to focus in on. But it’s also clear for us that we need to intensify our strategy to ensure that the population comes forward to get vaccinated.

So these are all things that we will be considering when we announced what life beyond July 31 looks like. And I just asked people I know it’s really difficult not to speculate, but please wait to make those announcements I’m hoping to make those announcements as early as tomorrow, to give people plenty of notice.

Victorian press conference:

Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar is giving a breakdown of the cases. There are 188 active cases in Victoria.

Seven people are in hospital, two in intensive care, one who is ventilated.

Of the 10 new cases recorded today: three linked to AAMI Park, two to Ms Frankies, two to Trinity Grammar, and single cases linked to St Patrick’s, City of Hume, and Young and Jackson’s.

Weimar is warning that the state is still at a “critical stage”, as thousands of people are still to record a day 13 test in isolation. Several of today’s cases had tested negative but recorded positive day 13 tests.

It is so important we complete the end process. It’s like the swimming races. It’s a hard finish to isolation. Please don’t bail out at the last bit because you think it is probably over by now. This is probably the most critical stage. With a number of cases turning positive on their day 13 test, it’s important to make sure the remaining people complete their isolation period.

Victorian press conference:

Premier Daniel Andrews has had this to say about those tougher NSW border measures:

I take no pleasure in having to essentially lock out those four communities from Victoria, but there’s a refusal to lock people in Sydney into Sydney, so I have no choice but to make these changes. I will foreshadow with you that there will be further border changes ... I’ll announce those as soon as we can. We have to do everything we can to keep this virus out of our state and it’s obviously regrettable that we’ve had to do that all the way down at the Murray but we’ll do what we can. I can’t control the settings in capital cities other than our own but these are the rules and these are the changes that we’ve made.

NSW press conference:

Berejiklian has confirmed the deaths of two women in their 80s, these were the deaths that were previously reported yesterday.

Tragically, I want to extend my condolences to the families and loved ones of the two older women who succumbed to the disease yesterday.

Unfortunately, they were household contacts that they got the disease from. They weren’t vaccinated and my messages to everybody, please come forward and get the vaccine. Not only are you protecting yourself but you’re protecting those closest to you.

Victoria press conference:

Premier Daniel Andrews has also announced harder border restrictions with New South Wales.

He says residents of the NSW local government areas of Wagga Wagga, Hay, Lockhart and Murrumbidgee will no longer be in the border bubble and will have to apply for a permit if they wish to travel to Victoria.

Andrews says the new restrictions will be in place for two weeks.

NSW press conference:

Once again I mention that that “infectious in the community” number that Berejiklian reads out is always the lower end of the spectrum.

Here are the stats from NSW Health:

Sixty-one cases were in isolation throughout their infectious period and 19 cases were in isolation for part of their infectious period. Sixty cases were infectious in the community, and the isolation status of 32 cases remains under investigation.

So that is at least 79 in the community while infectious.

Andrews:

So a lot of good news in today’s announcements, I know that’s not the news people want to hear but it is incredibly important that we regard home as what it is. It is in many respects, from a transmission of this virus point of view, the highest risk environment. So no visitors to your home for the next two weeks.

If we can change at that point, obviously we will, but the advice is we have to continue to regard those environments as high risk. Pubs, restaurants, cafes, bars, they will open, 100 inside, 300 outside, density quotient of one person per square metres. Gyms will be open with a similar density quotient.

Community sport is back on, practice for kids and adults. Accommodation settings, for the purposes of your stay, it is your home. So the same rules apply as if you are at your home. You can’t be going away with other families, you can’t be having visitors to your temporary home, the accommodation that you might seek to use over the next couple of weeks. If you are going away that’s fine, but it has got to be your family unit and the rules apply as if you are in your family home. No visitors, no shared holidays.

Come on, Andrews! Don’t leave us in suspense here!

OK, we are just standing by to hear from Victorian premier Daniel Andrews who is expected to announce the easing of the state’s 12-day hard lockdown.

Big coffee sips for more inexplicable graphic design choices from Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Someone take her Canva premium account off her in hotel quarantine! For the sake of the nation!

OK, well this is a little different, 10.45am AEST for the Victorian press conference.

Supermarket workers in south-west Sydney will soon have priority access to the Pfizer vaccine via pop-up clinics and appointments at the Sydney Olympic Park mass vaccination hub.

The announcement comes after the New South Wales chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said it was crucial to vaccinate essential workers in the area because they kept the city functioning.

“We are very keen to provide access to those critical workers that are required to keep Sydney running,” she said.

“They do a lot of the work in distribution centres, food, logistics, transport.

“At this point in time, vaccinations are not the whole answer, and we need to maintain the lockdown as tight as possible.”

You can read the full report below:

And the Victorian Liberals are being the Victorian Liberals again.

D’ath also said Queensland would wait and see what the announcements are out of South Australia and Victoria today before making any decisions when it comes to border restrictions.

I also want to say we are aware that we expect some announcements from Victoria and South Australia today around their lockdowns.

We will await any formal decision of those two jurisdictions before we make any decisions as to any changes to travel from Victoria and South Australia to Queensland.

I understand some figures are out this morning for Victoria, which look very positive, but we will await to see what the decisions of those two jurisdictions are and, if they lift their lockdowns, what the level of restrictions are going to be going forward to figure out where we go next and update the people of Queensland after that.

Queensland health minister Yvette D’ath says that it’s likely the virus has spread through the air in hotel quarantine, and this is how the man who recently returned from China was infected.

What we have seen with this most recent case is six other people getting infected from one individual.

Five of those on the same plane and one in hotel quarantine so it shows how infectious the new Delta strain is, which we are now seeing as the dominant strain across the globe. And, of course, we will look at the CCTV footage in relation to that hotel but we are confident, more than likely, this is going to be something that’s been transferred through the air in that hotel because of the nature of this virus.

However, Young says she is still worried that a Covid-19 positive man who travelled from NSW to Queensland, despite allegedly being aware he was a close contact and require to isolate, might have spread the Delta variant into the state.

I am still very, very worried about the other two individuals, who came up from Sydney to Ballina and was picked up at Ballina and then came into Queensland with that other person, the Qantas regional flight crew member.

They have been out and about in our community while infectious for a while so it’s really important. I can’t overemphasise it.

Please could everyone keep wearing their masks, because I genuinely think that has made a difference for Queensland in not seeing large cases out of any of these infected people.

Young says it’s unlikely this man spread the virus in the community given his fully vaccinated status.

So this gentleman was fully vaccinated and we do have some serology back that suggests that he had antibodies, despite that.

So the vaccine had worked but despite that he still got infected. It took a while for his infection to declare itself so we saw that initially indeterminate result with a high CT level and we got the subsequent confirmation that yes, he did have the infection.

So I do think his infection is unlikely to have spread to anyone else.

Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young says this man is part of a cluster associated with the strain of the virus, which possibly spread on the plane to Australia and in hotel quarantine.

I got the whole genome sequence result for that man who travelled from China and was in hotel quarantine and he has exactly the same sequence.

It’s identical ... with a traveller who returned from South Africa via Doha.

There are now seven people in that cluster. We had that person come back as part of a family group and they went into one hotel and then we had others in another group who went into a different hotel and they’ve all become positive subsequently and have the same genome sequence.

They were all on the same flight from Doha to Brisbane that arrived on 8 July. Now we’ve seen this gentleman, who was on the same floor, in fact in the room opposite to one of those others, has contracted the infection from that person.

So he left quarantine on 12 July and then he developed symptoms on 15 July so that’s why we’ve contact traced back two days to the 13th of July and you’ll have seen all of those venues on our website.

Don’t worry all, you are in good hands on the blog for presser-geddon.

Ahhh! And speaking of press conferences, the South Australian premier, Steven Marshall, will be speaking at 11am (ACST) which is 11.30am (AEST).

Come on Daniel Andrews, do me a solid and please don’t schedule your press conference any time between 10.30am and 12.30pm.

No surprises here but Gladys Berejiklian will be speaking at 11am.

There is plenty of dark, bleak Covid-19 news this morning, so please enjoy a quick break with this video of the USA Rugby Sevens team testing out if the Olympic village cardboard beds are really as fragile as the internet would have us believe.

Australian researchers who have studied the portrayal of vaping on TikTok say there is an “urgent need” for age restrictions to reduce teens’ exposure to videos that portray it in a positive light.

University of Queensland researchers have analysed e-cigarette content posted by TikTok users globally and are calling for tighter regulations to prevent nicotine products being promoted to underage users of the video-sharing platform.

The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, evaluated the content of 808 popular vaping videos that had been collectively viewed more than 1.5bn times as of November 2020. The videos had a median count of 1m views each.

The videos that portrayed e-cigarette use positively comprised 63% of the total and were viewed more than 1.1bn times, while neutral depictions accounted for 24%. The researchers estimated that a quarter of the people in the videos appeared to be younger than 18, while 71% were male.

You can read the full report below:

A friendly reminder that Guardian Australia has you covered when it comes to the Olympics as well!

You can check out our Tokyo live blog, run by Tom Lutz, below:

Here is what ABC has to say on the newly announced Victorian numbers.

No Victorian Covid-19 numbers as of yet, but don’t worry, I’m refreshing my browser every 0.5 seconds just in case.

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has welcomed the Morrison government’s decision to adopt an independent complaints mechanism for serious incidents in Parliament House, which is the central recommendation of the Foster review.

Higgins, who says she was raped by a more senior colleague in the office of the then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, said on Monday an independent complaints mechanism would “ensure Parliament House is a safer workplace for all future employees”.

The Morrison government has accepted all 10 findings of the Foster review, which was initiated after Higgins went public with her story. The prime minister asked a deputy secretary in his department, Stephanie Foster, to undertake a review of the parliamentary workplace. There is also a separate review being undertaken by Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins.

You can read the full report below:

Given the case numbers, I don’t really see how this would play out any other way?

In terms of what to expect from this Victorian lockdown announcement today, the Herald Sun is reporting that while stay-at-home orders and the 5km loop will be scrapped, hospitality venues will be under strict patron caps and private gatherings in homes will still be banned.

This has not been independently confirmed by Guardian Australia.

The paper is reporting Victoria will enter “lockdown lite” from midnight tonight, with masks remaining mandatory both indoors and outdoors.

Reportedly schools will return to face-to-face learning, retailers and gyms will be allowed to reopen and public gatherings of up to 10 people will be allowed.

However, restaurants, bars, cafes and pubs will be restricted to one person per four square metres, as well as “harsh patron caps which are still being finalised”.

We should learn if the Herald Sun is on the money with their report around 11am-ish this morning when the premier steps up for this all-important press conference.

Hmmm, Melbourne radio station 3AW is reporting that Victoria police have found the trio of Sydney removalists who allegedly spread the Delta variant to Victoria did not breach any health orders.

I’ll follow up and bring you more of that as soon as I can.

One of the federal government’s key vaccine deals has been hit with major delays, with 51 million doses of Novavax originally due to arrive in the second half of this year now not expected until 2022.

Since initially touting Novavax as one of three secured deals that could immunise the entire population as a “primary” vaccine by the end of this year, the federal government has quietly edged away from the commitment as it focuses instead to securing more Pfizer vaccines.

The ordered Novavax will now serve as part of the government’s booster strategy when supplies mostly come on stream in 2022, with only a small portion of the 51 million ordered now expected in the final quarter of this year.

You can read the full report below:

Ariarne Titmus uninstalled her social media apps before arriving at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. So when the Australian swimmer arrived for the press conference after winning the women’s 400m freestyle on Monday, she had not seen the entirety of her coach Dean Boxall’s wild celebration. But Titmus was unsurprised that Boxall was fast becoming an internet sensation.

“That’s just the way Dean is,” she explained. “He’s very passionate about what he does – he really becomes quite animated.”

South African-born Boxall, in his mid-40s, has been a swim coach for more than two decades and currently leads Brisbane-based swim club St Peters Western. The club has a long pedigree of supporting top talent, with alumni including past Olympic stars Stephanie Rice and Leisel Jones.

In recent years Boxall has developed a reputation as “one of swimming’s new rock star coaches”. He travelled to Tokyo with a squad of six Australian swimmers under his guidance; three have already won gold; Titmus on Monday, plus youngsters Meg Harris and Mollie O’Callaghan as part of the winning 4x100m relay team on Sunday.

You can read the full story on Dean Boxall below:

Now I don’t just talk the talk, people. After posting below about the importance of booking in a blood donating appointment, I went and booked my own for tonight.

I’ve got to share that sweet sweet O-negative around! And, if you are able, you should too!

(There’s a HEAP of restrictions, including having had a Covid-19 vaccine in the last seven days, as well as some pretty broad banns on men who have sex with men, so being eligible definitely isn’t a given.)

You can book appointments on the Lifeblood website.

The ongoing “failure” of Australia’s top legal officers to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years old has seen 499 under-13s sent to jail in the past year alone, according to a coalition of 47 justice and health organisations.

The coalition – representing welfare, youth and legal advocates, including Anglicare and Acoss – says attorneys general have “failed” to take action, “despite being handed an expert report overwhelmingly recommending that all states and territories and the federal government change laws to keep children out of prison.”

In 2020, 499 children aged between 10 and 13 were imprisoned. At least 65% of them are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children. 68% of all children in detention were on remand, meaning they were yet to be convicted of any crime.

“Every day that attorneys general refuse to act, they are condemning a generation of our children to a lifetime behind bars. Ten-year-old children who get trapped in the criminal justice system don’t come out,” the co-chair of Change the Record, Cheryl Axelby, said.

You can read the full report below:

I reached out to NSW police about this locked-down apartment in Sydney’s south-west.

This is what they had to say:

The NSW police force are providing support to NSW Health, who are responding to several cases of Covid-19 in an apartment block in Blacktown.

NSW police were asked to be on site in case assistance was required.

Tens of thousands of Covid nasal test swabs are being put on planes and flown from hotspots in New South Wales to be processed in Brisbane and other cities, with labs in Sydney still “drowning” from record testing turnouts that have led to result wait times of up to 10 days.

As daily testing numbers hover around 100,000 in NSW, a backlog in processing swabs in Sydney continues to force people into isolation, with Guardian Australia aware of an essential worker abandoning their vaccine appointment as they awaited a negative result.

Laverty Pathology, which runs drive-through Covid testing clinics, including one in Fairfield at the heart of Sydney’s outbreak, last week acknowledged a “huge surge” in testing had pushed turnaround times to 72 hours, however there have been reports of some Laverty patients waiting more than four days for a result.

You can read the full report below:

Opposition front bencher Chris Bowen is out and about this morning. He is actually spruiking his new book about ALP history.

But I’m more interested in what he has to say about the greater Sydney outbreak, given his electorate of McMahon is smack bang in the middle of the hard-hit south-western suburbs, including parts of the Fairfield LGA.

Bowen was asked on ABC News Breakfast if he believes tighter lockdown restrictions are needed to curb the spread of the Delta variant in the area.

The proportion of cases from Sydney in Fairfield has been falling every day.

I simply make this point, the people of Fairfield and Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown and have been complying with the restrictions. I can take you through the streets of the CBD of my electorate, you could fire a gun and not hurt anyone that’s how quiet it is. People are responding. That needs to be recognised.

It’s been a tough time out here for small business, for people just trying to get their food on the table, but we’ve responded very well. I’m very proud of the community. And of course, whatever the premier says today will be complied with as well.

But it’s important we recognise this is not an issue of compliance, people are doing the right thing, getting tested every three days, turning up where they can and be vaccinated.

I was at the south-west Sydney vaccination centre getting my second shot yesterday. People were responding in huge numbers. Where they can get vaccinated, they are being vaccinated.

This is interesting, as a central pillar of the state government rhetoric around the south-west outbreak has been that lockdown laws are sufficient, but people simply aren’t complying with the social distancing laws to a sufficient degree.

Hello and welcome to Tuesday! (Oh my, it’s only Tuesday.)

Unfortunately, there is some tragic news to start the day.

The death toll from this latest Delta wave of coronavirus has reached double digits, with NSW Health reporting two more deaths from Covid-related illness.

They confirmed a woman in her 80s had died at her home in Pendle Hill in Sydney’s west on Monday afternoon, while a man, also in his 80s, died at Campbelltown hospital.

Those reading the blog from Melbourne today are no doubt on edge, as they wait to hear if lockdown will lift at midnight tonight. It’s expected that the strictest social distancing laws will be lifted, but the state’s pathway out of lockdown will be cautious and incremental.

Premier Daniel Andrews has already flagged masks will likely remain compulsory in some settings, while health minister Martin Foley told reporters on Monday “nothing has yet been finalised”.

He said the state was “on the right track” but authorities wanted to base their decision on the most up-to-date and accurate data.

They usually hold their Covid press conferences around 11-11.30am.

Speaking of easing restrictions, South Australian premier Steven Marshall says the state’s week-long lockdown will end at one minute past midnight on Wednesday morning, provided there are no further “unlinked” coronavirus cases.

Masks will still be required in high-risk settings, such as aged care centres, in medical services and on public transport. All food and drink consumption must be while seated, and dancing and singing remain banned. Family gatherings will be limited to 10 people, although weddings and funerals can have up to 50.

OK, with that, why don’t we jump into the day!

If there is something you reckon I’ve missed or think should be in the blog but isn’t, shoot me a message on Twitter @MatildaBoseley.