While we are talking about possible exit strategies, Guardian Australia’s editor, Lenore Taylor, has written about the need to think very carefully before lifting social distancing restrictions. She writes: Governments have started to talk about the trade-offs involved in various exit plan options. Understandably, they are approaching the topic tentatively, because most of us will stay housebound for months, and because of the serious potential consequences of even a small relaxation of the rules. The national cabinet has asked health experts for advice and Australia-specific modelling. But these are not judgments that can be made solely on the basis of economic calculations or epidemiological forecasting. They are moral and ethical questions that require not just our heads but also our hearts. You can read Lenore’s full piece here. Police in Queensland have fined 289 people with breaching social distancing laws and the ban on non-essential travel, issuing fines totalling $385,526. The figures, provided by AAP, were current as of Friday morning — so expect that they would have increased by now. Among those fined were 18 people, in 10 vehicles, in an industrial area of Loganholme. Police have described the group as “hoons”. It follows and alleged illegal car rally in Brisbane last Saturday, where a large group split across 150 cars gathered in a warehouse car park. Queensland introduced tighter border restrictions at midnight last night, requiring all Queenslanders returning home from interstate to present a Queensland Entry Pass, which can be applied for online here. The existing green entry and vehicle passes are now void. Residents must then self-quarantine for 14 days if they have been to an area declared a COVID-19 hotspot — which includes Sydney — unless their travel was for an essential purpose. Interstate freight transport services remain exempt from the border rules. The ABC’s election analyst Antony Green has gone through the numbers from the Brisbane local government elections. Unsurprisingly, voting on polling day was significantly down. In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all 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. As I mentioned earlier, Ben Doherty has been taking a look at what the end of the lockdown period might look like in Australia. This week the prime minister, Scott Morrison, indicated restrictions might be lifted state by state at some undetermined time, with smaller states with lower infection rates providing a test case for larger states to follow. Doherty writes: Tasmania, with fewer cases, and the geographic advantage of being a small island with firmly established biosecurity laws, may be able to move sooner than other states. Those areas hardest hit by Covid-19 cases – New South Wales, Victoria and south-east Queensland – are likely to be the last to be able to move. South Australia, with a low and falling infection rate and the highest per capita testing rate in the country, could also be an early mover. Prof Lyn Gilbert, the chair of the infection prevention and control expert advisory group that reports to the nation’s chief health officers, has warned restrictions could wax and wane with the rate of infections. “Everyone wants to know when it will end, and I know the politicians are desperate to be able to say when it will end, but I think we’ve got to be cautious,” she said. “I think the only way to do it properly is to watch what’s happening and calibrate the response according to what’s happening. And if restrictions were lifted, at least partly, and the numbers started to go up again, they’d probably have to be reimposed.” The Australian government has announced $100m in funding to help charities provide emergency relief during the coronavirus downturn. It includes $37m to be shared among 200 emergency relief organisations to help them boost support and update their service delivery methods to comply with social distancing guidelines. The funding also includes $16m to be split between Foodbank Australia, SecondBite and OzHarvest, which provide food parcels to growing numbers of vulnerable people, and $7m to help the Red Cross provide emergency relief. Another $20m will go towards financial counselling services like the national debt helpline and problem gambling hotlines. The social services minister, Anne Ruston, said the commonwealth already funded financial counselling support to 115,000 people a year. The additional funding will provide support to another 50,000 people. The final $20m will go towards Good Shepherd to offer 40,000 people access to a no-interest loans scheme. Ruston also announced a national coordination group to coordinate emergency relief across Australia: Many people reaching out to these services may have never needed this type of assistance before so we need to make sure we have the right supports in place to help people through this period and bounce back stronger when it’s over. I have been in constant communication with the sector which has told me what they need and we are responding. Is this the end of the NRL island dream? NRL chairman Peter V’Landys has told the Sydney Morning Herald that the league has permission to resume the competition “tomorrow if we wanted to”, appearing to crush our collective dreams of NRL island. It comes after the deputy chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, hosed down suggestions the NRL could resume its season on 28 May, saying: “I don’t think they [the NRL] are a law unto themselves.” V’Landys said the NRL had written permission from the NSW state emergency operations centre to resume, and said he had rung the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, on Friday to remind him that they were “exempted in the health order”. He told News Corp that Kelly “unfortunately is unaware of the health order and our dealings with the relevant authorities”. V’Landys told the SMH: In reality we could do it tomorrow if we wanted to, but we’re not going to because we’re going to let the infection rate continue its stabilisation. What we have juggled is to make sure we are no threat to the community’s health by spreading the virus. But I can’t see how we spread the virus if the players who are going there are all negative and playing each other in a sterile situation when we know they’re all negative. We’ve got to go back to some sort of normality at some point in time. We just can’t be like this for the rest of our lives. And we would not do it if the risk wasn’t so low. We were playing and were allowed to play at 23% infection rate. It’s down to 1.48%. You should be able to get back. On Friday the NRL has suggested it could resume its season on 28 May. Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus crisis in Australia. First, a large operation is under way to move the 1,300 people who have completed their mandatory 14-day quarantine in Sydney. They are the first group to have completed the hotel-based quarantine after returning to Australia on 28 March. Some have had their plans to return home interstate frustrated by the cancellation of domestic flights. On Friday, Virgin Australia suspended all domestic flights except one daily run from Sydney to Melbourne. They are the only people who should be on the move this weekend. Police have repeatedly warned they will crack down on anyone travelling for Easter. Yesterday the NSW arts minister, Don Harwin, resigned after being fined $1,000 for staying at his Central Coast holiday home in breach of a Covid-19 public health order. In Tasmania, the premier, Peter Gutwein, has warned that helicopters will fly along the north-west coast to see if anyone has breached orders to stay home by visiting their coastal shacks. And in Western Australia, the captain of the Fremantle Dockers, Nat Fyfe, has been cleared by police of what appeared to be breach of the travel ban after he was spotted surfing at Margaret River. Beaches in WA remain open, but the premier, Mark McGowan, warned they would be closed if they attracted crowds. As of last night there are 6,203 cases of Covid-19 confirmed in Australia, and 54 people have died after testing positive to the disease. Globally the death toll has passed 100,000, with 980 people dying in the UK alone in the past 24 hours. The daily incidence curve is continuing to fall. And experts have begun to consider Australia’s path out of this crisis, as Ben Doherty has reported in this in-depth piece. More on that a bit later. If we miss anything, you can reach me on twitter @callapilla or at calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com.