Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, is speaking to the media in Melbourne. The state has 14 new cases of Covid-19, 13 of which are confirmed to be linked to the Cedar Meats (seven workers, and six close contacts of workers). The origin of the 14th case is still being investigated. Victoria now has 1,454 confirmed cases. Eight people remain in hospital, six of those are in intensive care. Andrews has stressed the importance of the testing regime and warned against lifting restrictions – Victoria’s are the now the strictest in the country – too early: I want to thank every single Victorian who has presented to get tested. I can confirm we’ve done 106,000 tests in the last week and a half. With ramping up over the first few days, pretty much in the last week that we’ve had 106,000 swabs taken. That’s 1,806 extra tests yesterday. Victorians across the board, we are so proud, we’ve asked you to come forward to get tested and we encourage you to keep coming forward to be tested even with the mildest symptoms. Those tests will give us the confidence that there is not more of this virus out in the community than we perhaps think. That surveillance work, that checking is really, very, very important. Andrews said he understood public frustration with continuing restrictions, and said no one in government was happy at having to impose them to protect public health: The last thing we want to do is to ease off any of those restrictions without a sense of confidence that we are truly on top of this and that our case numbers aren’t just a function of low levels of testing, but they are in fact the function of a really big testing program. There are parts of the world that let off restrictions very early – they thought they had beaten it, turned out they hadn’t. They now have even stricter lockdowns in place than they ever had, before they let their frustrations get the better of them, perhaps, and changed the settings. Nobody is enjoying these settings, I understand that, but it is ... important to stay the course on this, not just to do what we want to do, but to do what is ... in the interests of every single Victorian family, every single Victorian business. The federal government has welcome the ACT’s announcement of a plan for a return to school for all students in the territory. The ACT deputy chief minister, Yvette Berry, announced a phased return for students to classrooms over the next four weeks, beginning with preschoolers, kindergarteners, and years 1,2,7, 11 and 12 students. The federal minister for education, Dan Tehan, has applauded this: Students get the best education in the classroom, learning from their teacher, so today’s announcement by the ACT government is welcome news for students, parents, teachers and principals. Learning outcomes for vulnerable, poor, remote and Indigenous students suffer the most from remote learning, so the move back to classroom teaching will be most welcome for them. Our government has taken a consistent position to follow the expert medical advice and the expert medical advice has been consistent that schools are safe for students and teachers with the right protocols in place. 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. Tasmania’s premier, Peter Gutwein, has reported that one new case of Covid-19 was detected in that state late last night. It was the only new case in Tasmania in the past 24 hours. The state now has has 224 cases, 41 of which remain active. Gutwein said that after the national cabinet meeting Friday he would announce Tasmania’s “roadmap” for the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, with a particular focus on which businesses might be able to resume operations and in what modified form. Tomorrow, after national cabinet, I’ll be outlining Tasmania’s way forward, and the roadmap that we’ll be taking. One thing that I do want to make clear, though, is that we have to expect that we will see, with increased testing, positive cases bubble up. And we need to remain ever vigilant and maintain our discipline. In Tasmania, as I said, we will continue to march to the beat of our own drum. Newmarch House operator to appoint an external adviser today Anglicare Sydney, the operator of the Newmarch House aged care home in Sydney where 16 people have died from Covid-19, will appoint an external adviser to oversee the home’s response to its ongoing outbreak. Newmarch House had been given until 5pm to appoint the adviser or it risked losing its licence to operate. In a statement, the organisation said: Anglicare Sydney has received a Notice from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission requiring us to appoint an external adviser to support Anglicare management to meet its regulatory obligations, during the Covid-19 outbreak at Newmarch House. Anglicare will be making this appointment today. The new adviser will be appointed by Anglicare for a period of three months. The adviser’s role does not extend to any other Anglicare residential aged care facility or any other Anglicare government funded program. Anglicare Sydney is confident with the support of the adviser and the Commission issues at Newmarch House will be resolved expeditiously. Residents and families can be assured that this will mean we will have additional expertise to support us during this extremely difficult time. The impact of the Covid-19 on Newmarch House has been unprecedented for residents, families and staff. All our energy and focus is dedicated to containing the spread and the impact of this devastating virus. More on Queensland. The relaxation of restrictions (just in time for Mother’s Day) is designed to allow one household to visit another. And this can happen multiple times a day, with different households visiting. The press conference focuses on the nuts and bolts of how this might work. The state’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, gave the example of a family visiting grandparents in the morning, and another family group visiting in the afternoon. That will be allowed. There is a limit of five visitors going to a household, but no limit on the number of people living at the visited household. It’s about five people –maximum – of one family group, one household group, going to another household group. One household going to another household. You can split it up. So, I’m sure there’s a lot of mums out there who’d love to see one household in the morning and another in the afternoon and another in the evening. That could happen. But they can’t all go at the same time. So it’s about one household with another household. Some further updates on Queensland’s active cases from the health minister, Dr Steven Miles: There are just eight patients in hospital right now. Three of them are in ... intensive care. All of them are receiving ventilation. Those low numbers are what allows us to continue to ease those restrictions and I’m sure mums right across the state will celebrate the fact that on Mother’s Day they’ll be able to welcome their families in single-household groups to visit them. Up to five visitors allowed in Queensland homes from Sunday Annastacia Palaszczuk has an update on her state. Only two new cases of Covid-19 have been detected overnight. Both are on the Gold Coast: That takes our total cases to 1,045. We only now have 50 active cases in Queensland. So that number keeps coming down. Once again, over 125,000 tests have been conducted. And there’s a Mothers’ Day reward for Queenslanders! Now, of course, this Sunday is Mothers’ Day. And because Queensland has been doing such a great job, from Sunday, we will be allowing up to five members to visit a household right across Queensland. So that is great news for families. The five visitors must be from the same household. The rationale behind it is allowing family groups to visit. And multiple groups can visit a house over the course of a day. By the way, just a quick update on the political stoush unfolding in NSW over the Eden-Monaro byelection. The two frontrunners for the Liberal seat have now quit, with infighting in the party dominating headlines. The federal president of the National party, Larry Anthony, told ABC radio this morning that candidates need to “pull their head’s in” as their responsibility is to the nation. Look, politics is is a rough game, and people are ambitious, that’s just the reality ... A lot of these private conversations, they should not be in the public. And as I say, a day is a long time in politics and weeks almost a lifetime and we’ve seen it now, with two very good candidates putting their hand up in the NSW government, and who chose not to. You can read what Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, thinks of the Nationals’ conduct at the moment, here: The NSW deputy premier spent last weekend “on the farm” despite telling the public not to travel. John Barilaro said travelling to his second property 125km away did not breach lockdown rules. Two of NSW’s new cases are Newmarch House employees Two of those three new Covid-19 cases in NSW in the past 24 hours are from Newmarch House aged care home in western Sydney. They were identified as part of the daily testings all staff must undergo when entering the facility. NSW lockdown laws unlikely to be eased by Mother"s Day More news from NSW’s daily press conference: Gladys Berejiklian says it’s unlikely there will be any extra easing of lockdown laws in NSW by Mother’s Day. I want to manage expectations and say if national cabinet does suggest easing of restrictions, they won’t be able to be made in time for Mother’s Day. We will be able to visit them. Two adults and children at any one time and of course that can happen multiple times a day as long as everybody is careful. Newmarch House has until 5pm to appoint independent adviser or risks having licence revoked Another thing to look out for today, the Newmarch House aged care home has been given until 5pm to appoint an independent adviser to ensure the safety and wellbeing of residents, or it risks having its licence revoked. Anglicare’s Newmarch House has been hit hard by Covid-19, 16 residents have now died and 29 staff and 37 residents have been infected. Here is the response of the Anglicare chief executive, Grant Millard: We acknowledge the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission have, [yesterday] afternoon, taken regulatory action, including appointing an independent adviser to provide additional support to Newmarch House. Since the outbreak, we have had generous support of providers in the aged care sector, including commonwealth and NSW governments, and various agencies. While the outbreak at Newmarch House has proved very challenging for all involved, the situation has substantially improved. We will continue to collaborate with key stakeholders as we work through the continuing challenges in the coming weeks. Our primary concern remains the health, wellbeing and safety of our residents, their families, and our staff. You can read yesterday’s Guardian Australia story here: NSW confirms three new Covid-19 cases Gladys Berejiklian has confirmed NSW has only had three additional Covid-19 cases overnight. The premier said all three were close contacts of known cases. There wasn’t any community-to-community transmission in those three cases. That’s a great result. If you compare that to a month ago, NSW was conducting a third of the number of tests with over 50 cases a day on average. It is a wonderful improvement and I want to say thank you to everybody. All ACT kids in classrooms by June The ACT deputy chief minister, Yvette Berry, has announced a plan to return children to classrooms over the next four weeks. Here is the breakdown: From Monday 18 May, week 4 of term 2 All preschool, kindergarten, year 1, 2 and 7 students will return to their usual school for on-campus learning. Year 11 and 12 students will attend a combination of on-campus and remote learning. To support teachers to return to schools, children of teachers may also attend their usual school. From Monday 25 May, week 5 of term 2 All year 3, 4 and 10 students will return to their usual schools. From Tuesday 2 June, week 6 of term 2 All students in years 5, 6, 8 and 9 will return to their usual schools, meaning all year groups will have returned to on-campus learning. Remote learning will remain available for students with chronic health conditions or compromised immune systems. Still on Cedar Meats, Sally McManus said achieving safe physical distancing in some industries will require government regulation. With meatworks, they are competing against each other. If one of them implements social distancing and slow downs, it costs money – they’ve all got to do it. You’ve got to take away the reasons for employers not to put in physical distancing ... Most employers will do the right thing, but we can’t leave it up to individual choice and the randomness of that. It has got to be enforced and it has got to be strongly backed in law. The secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sally McManus, has once again called for paid pandemic leave after the outbreak at the Melbourne abattoir Cedar Meats: One of the big problems is that we have got workers, low-paid workers and they are casuals, labour hire workers – they depend on that money and they say, “I’ve got a scratchy throat,” they are more likely to just soldier on rather than go get tested than to be positive and out of the workplace for two weeks. That’s why we think there should be paid pandemic leave for all workers for this period of time while we’ve got this pandemic. It is the only way to make sure that people aren’t suffering an economic disincentive to put their hand to say. Today it’s looking as though the talk of the town will be the great reopening. Lockdown laws are slowly easing and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has suggested he wants large sections of the economy back up and running in July. But if more of us are heading back to the office, what exactly does it take to have a Covid-19 safe workplace? My colleague Justine Landis-Hanley tries to answer just that in this report: We start the morning with a bit of a throwback. The former prime minister Kevin Rudd is chatting to ABC News Breakfast. Rudd says an inquiry into the origins of the virus and how the WHO handled the crisis is necessary but says Australia has gone about it the wrong way: If you’re serious about a proposal like this, the first law of diplomacy is you bring a whole lot of other countries around with you to co-sponsor the proposal. I notice from events of the last several days, it was only after the statements by Mr Morrison and foreign minister Payne that they decided to correspond with the G20 governments in order to try and pull together some support. So, if you’re serious about these things. The first lesson is you build up the diplomatic coalition in support of it and then you announce it, not the reverse way. Good morning Good morning and welcome to today’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia. You have me, Matilda Boseley, with you for this morning. We have woken up to some good news and bad news. First up, in potentially good news for universities, the head of a committee advising the federal government on overcoming the coronavirus crisis says Australian universities could organise charter flights to bring in foreign students to help prop up the country’s higher education system. “There’s an opportunity here for the universities to work with government to provide safe processes to get those students either in a holding pattern overseas, but then to expedite those visas, get those international students back here as quickly as we can,” Nev Power, who heads up the government’s Covid-19 coordination committee, told the Australian Financial Review. The businessman suggested the students would undergo coronavirus tests before departing and on arrival and be put in quarantine for two weeks in Australia. In not-so good news, research from the Australian National University shows Australians have suffered a $102bn blow to household income and one-quarter of people believe they will probably lose their jobs in the next year. You can read more on that from my colleague Paul Karp here. In overnight developments around the world: Spain has extended its state of emergency, with the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, saying that abruptly ending nearly eight weeks of lockdown would be “unforgivable”. The UK will consider easing its lockdown from Sunday, while its complacent attitude to the pandemic draws criticism from around the world. Cases in Iran are again rising, topping 100,000, after restrictions on movement were eased. China has said it will not invite international experts in to investigate the source of Covid-19 while the pandemic is still raging. Sweden has recorded almost 3,000 deaths from Covid-19, a figure the state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell called “a horrifyingling large number”. At least 90,000 healthcare workers globally are believed to have been infected, the International Council of Nursessays, noting that the the true figure could be as much as twice that. OK, let’s get started.