Australia Live News Update Covid: Victoria’s Daily Case Count Officially Exceeds NSW; new Qld restrictions after four local cases | Australia News

Back to the Covid committee, the departmental secretary of health Brendan Murphy is asked about the capacity of the health system to cope when restrictions are relaxed as part of the national plan.

Murphy said the work of ANZICS – the Australian and New Zealand intensive care company – had estimated that there were currently 2,000 intensive care beds in service, with the possibility of increasing another 2,500 if needed, with 500 of them staffed and ready to go.

“The important thing is that the jurisdictions are now doing significant additional work to refine what they will consider to be able to be endowed with this additional capacity,” he said.

Murphy added that the prime minister had taken into account “high-level aggregate data” on the capacity of the health system to cope with the reopening of the country under the terms of the national plan. He said:

At the global level, we are convinced that with the various mitigation measures proposed in phase B, with the possibility of adapting tests, tracing and quarantine and public health and social measures, to this vaccination rate , we should be able to control outbreaks and we are already seeing evidence of this in NSW.

labor senator Katy gallagher, whose child contracted Covid-19 and was managed in community-based care, said she feared the country was not prepared. She asked:

Do we have any idea how this will play out in the community? Because I can say, that I just went through this, I was absolutely unprepared for what happened at home, and I fear that we have thousands of families in the same situation as me, completely unprepared to what will happen to them.

State governments have released roadmaps for the reopening and are set to vaccinate us towards freedom, and while the idea of ​​a return to the great Australian summer has given morale a boost, knowledge of all the days that we have lost due to blockages this year remain difficult to erase from our minds.

Among my peers in our twenties, there is a feeling that we have been deprived of a pretty uncomfortable part of what is supposed to be the best time of our lives.

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The federal government announced that it will set up a $ 2 billion loan facility to support critical Australian mining projects, just days after the Quad leaders meeting in Washington DC, where supply chains were a key issue.

The government reported the plans yesterday, but released a statement today outlining some details, saying it wanted to make Australia “a world leader in extracting and downstream processing of in-demand resources, supporting them. jobs and communities, especially in the Australian region ”. .

The government said plans to offer up to $ 2 billion in funding over the next few years were aimed at “ensuring that we provide rare earths and other critical minerals that are essential in the supply chains of the new energy economy”.

The loan facility will be managed by Export Finance Australia and will report to the Minister of Commerce, Dan Tehan. The program will operate for 10 years, or until total funding of $ 2 billion has been provided.

Readers will notice the climate messages in the government statement, amid the Coalition’s ongoing divisions over the prospect of Australia formally committing to net zero emissions by 2050 ahead of the Glasgow summit in November.

Tehan said Australia’s essential minerals “would help other countries in the Indo-Pacific and beyond to accelerate their industrial reforms and transition to low carbon technologies and it benefits Australia and our partners ”.

The Minister of Resources and Water, Keith pitt, a Queensland national who has developed a critical minerals strategy and has publicly signaled his reluctance to a net zero commitment, said:

The lithium industry alone, which is key to developing new battery technology, is expected to be worth $ 400 billion globally by 2030 and initiatives like this will mean Australia is well positioned to seize its market share.

The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, said the idea was to fill the financial gaps in the development of critical mineral resources to get them off the ground.

The commercial dimensions of the critical minerals market make it a difficult place to establish. We want to make sure Australian resource producers establish themselves so they can connect with others in our supply chains in a free and open Indo-Pacific. Critical minerals are also a strategic area for governments, as they are fundamental to the future energy economy. These projects also mean jobs in construction, infrastructure development and permanent roles for the mining sector.

New South Wales Minister of Health Brad Hazzard insists that police will be responsible for enforcing entry restrictions on unvaccinated people – a position at odds with the state police commissioner who said officers “will not walk into restaurants, cafes and pubs to check if people are doubly vaccinated ”.

The state has recorded 863 new cases and seven deaths in the past 24 hours, but has achieved a full vaccination rate of 60.4%, thus approaching the target of 70% which will trigger an easing of restrictions, likely October 11.

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Matson also said Victoria had increasing cases in the west and southeast. She called on the Eastern Victorians to “remain vigilant” after cases emerged in Knox and the Yarra Ranges.

The four deaths were a man in his 80s from Whittlesea, a woman in her 80s and a man in her 70s, both from Hume, and a woman from Whittlesea, her age unknown.

The state is expected to meet its goal of having 80% of the first dose of immunization for people aged 16 and over by the end of Tuesday.

Victoria Minister of Health Martin Foley also announced that the Victorians would participate in a pilot home quarantine program, which will include some already isolated people and involve taking a daily selfie.

This app uses an image downloaded from a smartphone, a selfie, to check where you are meant to be when you are meant to be there.

It links back to location technology to confirm both your location and your identity at the time of the alert.