More detail on the South Australia border closure While we have a moment, let’s go back to the announcement that South Australia is closing its borders. Premier Steven Marshall announced this a short while ago. The SA police commissioner will also declare a major emergency in that state — that replaces the public health emergency that was previously declared, and means that emergency provisions are authorised under the Emergency Management Act and not the Public Health Act. Police are responsible for enforcing that act, so the emergency management response will now be coordinated by the police commissioner. This is similar to what Tasmania announced on Thursday. Marshall said the measure was announced after a number of cases in SA in recent days were of people who had contracted the virus after returning from interstate, or contracted it from people visiting from interstate. This has forced our decision to close our borders in South Australia. We make this decision in the interest of public health in South Australia. People that are coming into South Australia, whether they are visitors or whether they are South Australians returning, will be required to undertake 14 days of self isolation. This is no longer something which is optional. It is mandatory. It is the social responsibility of every single person in this state to make sure that they are abiding by these rules. The laws will come into force on 4pm on Tuesday. Border control stations will be set up at the airport, at train stations, and on roads entering SA — repurposing heavy vehicle inspections stations and biosecurity stations that already exist on the border. Marshall said: When people come into SouthAustralia, from four o’clock onTuesday afternoon, they will be required to understand precisely the orders that will be in place. They will be asked to sign a declaration that they will self isolate and they will be required to provide SAPOL with information on where they will be undertaking their self isolation. There will be tests on this important declaration and this commitment individuals regarding this very, very important Public safety initiative. There will be some arrangements put in place along borders because we know that in country South Australia, sometimes two towns on either side of the border have a high level of interaction... People that do live in those communities will be allowed to move between those communities once they have been identified as somebody in on of those communities but, I stress, if there is any reason to believe that there is an outbreak on the immediate other side of the border, then that’ll have to also be curtailed. Marshall said there would be some “logical exceptions” to the quarantine requirements, particularly around freight. FacebookTwitter 18m ago 03:17 NSW premier says she will introduce a "more comprehensive" lockdown of non-essential services Here is the full statement from the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, on a “more comprehensive lockdown of non-essential services” in NSW. The statement reads: Tonight I will be informing the National Cabinet that NSW will proceed to a more comprehensive shutdown of non-essential services. This will take place over the next 48 hours. Supermarkets, petrol stations, pharmacies, convenience stores, freight and logistics, and home delivery will be among the many services that will remain open. Schools will be open tomorrow, though I will have more to say on this issue in the morning. I will update NSW tomorrow morning about the impacts and our plans following the National Cabinet. FacebookTwitter 29m ago 03:06 NSW to move to extensive shutdown of non-essential services Victor Dominello MP ✔ @VictorDominello BREAKING: Tonight Premier @GladysB will inform the National Cabinet that NSW will proceed to a more extensive shutdown of non-essential services in the next 48hrs @smh @dailytelegraph @2GB873 @7NewsSydney @9NewsSyd @abcnews #coronavirusaustralia #StayAtHome #Covid_19australia View image on Twitter 35 5:00 AM - Mar 22, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 46 people are talking about this FacebookTwitter 27m ago 03:06 Unlike many news organisations, we chose a different approach: to keep the Guardian’s independent journalism open to everyone around the world. In these extraordinary times, we believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. Thanks to your support, we’re able to stay free of a paywall, our journalism available for all. No matter how unsettled the future feels, the Guardian will remain with you, delivering quality, measured, authoritative reporting. We hope to help all of us make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. Make a contribution - The Guardian 30m ago 03:05 ACT education minister Yvette Berry said public schools in Canberra were prepared and preparing to transition to online learning, should a decision be made to close schools. We are well placed for that shift and we have invested significantly in devices across our ACT school systems to ensure that we have the digital capability. Schools are being provided with both the time and support programs to make sure that we can do this transition as smoothly as possible when we need to make that decision. Berry said that school principals would have a teleconference on Monday morning to ensure all were across the situation. Victoria is expected to push the issue of school closures at the national cabinet meeting in Canberra tonight. FacebookTwitter 34m ago 03:01 Andrew Barr said the ACT government would undertake an immediate review of all locations across the territory where people may be continuing to gather together in significant numbers. If they are on public land, we will be closing these facilities, [closing] all these areas down. If they are on commonwealth land, we will be asking the commonwealth to do the same. He urged everyone to follow the advice on social distancing, and comply with self-isolation rules and travel restrictions. We cannot stress the seriousness of the situation for our country, for our city ... Every decision that has been made at all levels of government in Australia is painful and we know that it impacts on our local economies and the way of life that we have come to expect. But we’re doing this try and save lives, but it will only be effective if Canberrans make the necessary changes to help slow the spread of the virus. So we need your support now than ever. We need you to take action, we need you to take the physical distancing measures seriously. You should not be within 1.5m of another person unnecessarily. No handshakes. No hugging. We need you to avoid all non-essential travel. We need you to wash your hands regularly and often. Otherwise, the consequences will be dire. This is an unprecedented situation. We must now act together to ensure that we stop and slow the spread of this virus. Updated at 3.02am GMT FacebookTwitter 38m ago 02:57 ACT chief minister Andrew Barr says that the territory could not close its borders, as Tasmania, the NT, and SA have done, but that the ACT had advised that non-essential travel by ACT residents should be suspended. Barr: The only travel outside of the Canberra region should be for work, for compassionate reasons, and to ensure the essential supplies and services that our region needs. If you travel to the ACT for work or for your essential services, you are considered to be part of the Canberra region. We are urging Canberrans to take a common sense approach to this instruction. And carefully consider whether you need to travel outside of our region for any of these reasons. This means no holidays on the south coast. This means no weekends in Sydney or Melbourne. Visiting family and friends outside of the Canberra region has to be carefully considered and if it is not essential, do not do it. These measures have been put in place nationally to slow the spread of the virus across regions. If someone is carrying the virus and they travel to multiple regions, while they are symptomatic, they are potentially spreading the virus. If you do not have the virus, but you travel to a region that does, you are increasing the likelihood of bringing the virus back to your hometown, to your place of work, or to your family ... The ACT cannot close its border but our region can be protected. And we will be working closely with New South Wales and surrounding local government areas to ensure that these measures work effectively. Updated at 3.00am GMT FacebookTwitter 42m ago 02:53 ACT records 10 new cases, almost doubling total to 19 The ACT has reported 10 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total as of midday to 19. The new cases include 7 males and 3 females, aged between 21 and 67 years. Eight of the cases are linked to overseas travel, one is a known close contact of a previously confirmed case, and one follows interstate travel from Queensland. There have been 2,395 negative Covid-19 tests in the ACT so far. Two patients are being cared for in Canberra hospitals, the rest are isolating at home. I’ll bring you some comments from chief minister Andrew Barr shortly. FacebookTwitter 45m ago 02:50 Victoria reports 67 new cases of Covid-19, bringing total to 296 Victoria’s chief health officer, Professor Brett Sutton, said 67 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed yesterday, bringing the total number of cases to 296. The number of cases of confirmed community transmission in Victoria has risen to three. Six people are in hospital, and 70 people have recovered. More than 22,900 people have been tested so far. All but those confirmed positive, or awaiting results, were negative. Only 25 of the positive tests were of people who live in regional Victoria. Cases have been recorded in the Geelong region, Ballarat, the surf coast, Warrnambool, the Macedon Ranges, Latrobe, Yarriambiack, Gannawarra, Hepburn, Moorabool, Mitchell, Mildura and Greater Shepparton. Most of those locations have only recorded one case. Sutton said: While most Victorians are voluntarily complying with requests to isolate, Police have strong powers to enforce the direction if it’s required. Under the State of Emergency people who don’t comply with a directive could receive a fine of up to $20,000. Companies face fines of up to $100,000. For the virus to spread, extended close personal contact is most likely required. Close personal contact is at least 15 minutes face-to-face or more than two hours in the same room. Extensive testing has shown that people who have passed through places where there was a confirmed case, known as casual contacts, have an extremely low risk of transmission and are not currently recommended for testing. This will help to ensure our hospitals, assessment centres and general practitioners can prioritise testing for those most at risk. FacebookTwitter 51m ago 02:44 Finally, Paul Kelly was asked whether Australia had enough ventilators. Ventilator capacity has been a key limiting factor in the ability of countries overseas to treat all the severe cases they have seen in their health systems. Kelly said Australia does have “quite a lot of spare capacity” in parts of the health system other than intensive care, and that will be used to support ICU. He also said Australia had domestic ventilator capacity — he didn’t quantify that. Kelly: I am confident we can actually ramp up ICU substantially and just to say this, intensive care is not he only thing that people need. We need hospital beds and we need to consider hospital in the home and we need to consider a range of options and model of care which may look quite different to what we are used to in relation to people that are ill. And we’re doing that work right now. We have another infectious disease consultant who has joined us this week, Dr Nick Coatsworth. He is working with the society for respiratory physicians as well as the infectious diseases society and intensive care to do exactly that work with a view to having that all locked down and very ready to go this week. FacebookTwitter 54m ago 02:41 ‘We’re pretty much where I thought we would be’ Deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly was asked if he was concerned at apparent exponential increases in the number of positive cases in Australia, despite the raft of measures implemented by the Australian government in the past week. This is on the back of NSW reporting another 97 positive cases overnight. Kelly said this is not an unexpected growth rate, and that it will take a bit of time for the social distancing measures, mass gathering bans, and requirements for travellers to self-isolate to have an effect. Kelly said: So we’re pretty much where I thought we would be so I’m not surprised we have got to 1,000 at this point. The issue is that some of these things firstly are not being fully implemented and they need to be. We need to ramp up the communication to people about that, we need to make sure that people are listening, need to also start to consider enforcing some of these things, particularly in larger venues that are clearly not taking any notice of it. So these are things that we can do and must do over coming days. Most of these extra issues, including the border restrictions for all travellers last weekend, it is only one week old so it will take one week or two for those things to start to bite. And at the moment most of our cases we are seeing in Australia are related to travel. So now that so little travel is happening, that will start to decrease over time and just to reinforce that, anyone who has coming to Australia since last weekend must stay at home. And self-isolate. This is not a please do. This is a must. And that will be really ramped up over the coming days in terms of reminders and so forth to people that they must stay at home and they must self isolate for the protection of the community. Updated at 2.43am GMT FacebookTwitter 1h ago 02:37 States and territories may go it alone on school closures, says deputy chief medical officer On the issue of school closures, deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly said that he was aware of increasing rates of absenteeism from schools, as parents pull their children out, but he said the official advice, at this stage, was unchanged. The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, the national committee of chief medical and health officers, will discuss this when it meets at 4pm today. Kelly said that schools could reduce the potential spread of the virus by enforcing messages about hand washing, cough etiquette, staying home when sick, and adequate school cleaning. I recognise these are very difficult, particularly in the younger years of school, but reassuringly they have been very few cases of Covid-19 in children in Australia, similar to where we have seen the rest of the world, and of those cases, almost all of them have been extremely mild. Asked about the suggestion Victoria could close schools early, and would push for school closures at the national cabinet meeting tonight, Kelly said: In terms of what different states and territories might do, they will have to talk for themselves in relation to that. I know the prime minister is very keen on keeping a federal national approach but each of the states and territories have their own particular issues they need to deal with. In Victoria the Easter holidays are starting on Friday anyway so closing on Tuesday would not be a huge change to that. But they may need to take their own individual situations into account. Updated at 2.40am GMT FacebookTwitter 1h ago 02:31 Kelly said Australia had moved “very rapidly” to expand testing in the last month, and was continuing to expand testing. He said we would move to new rapid testing as those tests became available. FacebookTwitter 1h ago 02:30 Kelly said that scenes like those at Bondi beach yesterday showed that the messaging on social distancing could be improved. He said that messaging could always be improved. He also directly addressed younger people, saying “you are not immune”. While the majority of people who have experienced a severe infection worldwide have been older, young people have got a severe infection and some young people have died. All young people can transmit the virus to more vulnerable people.