Coronavirus Latest: Restaurants, Playgrounds To Reopen As Lockdown Changes Announced
Friday: warnings against importing hydroxychloroquine; lab vs wet market theories.
Hello! It’s Friday, May 8. Here’s today’s ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’.
Each day I’m bringing you 5 things to know about the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak + 5 non-corona things.
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You can email me at joshb2@protonmail.com if you have tips, feedback, ideas or want to chat
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Wash your hands and sneeze into your elbow. Practise physical distancing - at least 1.5 metres of separation. “Stay the fuck at home”.
Latest Australian stats: as of 9pm Thursday, Australia has 6896 reported cases of COVID-19 (that’s +22 since the day before), with 6035 reported as ‘recovered’; there have been 97 deaths; and more than 722,000 tests have been done, according to the latest federal Department of Health stats. Full global stats breakdown below
5 CORONAVIRUS THINGS
‘Roadmap’ of lockdown changes announced
As I’m writing this, Scott Morrison has just announced a “roadmap to a COVIDSafe Australia”, unveiling a three-stage plan to gradually reopen businesses and shuttered parts of society. In stage 1, which will be implemented soon by individual state governments, people will be allowed to have five visitors at home and 10 people can gather in public; restaurants, cafes, libraries, playgrounds and shopping will be allowed to reopen; and local and regional travel is allowed.
Gyms, beauty businesses and cinemas will be allowed to reopen from stage 2 (no timeline exactly on when that will be implemented), as will caravans and campgrounds, with “some interstate travel” permitted. It will take until stage 3, which Morrison says is hoped to come into force around July, that pubs and clubs will reopen. People are being recommended to keep working from home until stage 3.
Interstate — and potentially trans-Tasman and Pacific Island — travel will be allowed in this last stage.
One caveat — as the slides note, “states and territories will move at different times based on local conditions”, and Morrison noted that states like WA is already essentially allowing much of stage 1, due to its low infection rate. So remember, these changes are only valid if and when your local state/territory leader announces it.
Warnings against importing hydroxychloroquine
The Australian Border Force says it has seized “dozens of consignments” of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug touted as a possible coronavirus treatment (link). The ABF said “more than 6,000 tablets have been intercepted at the border since January”, and that “Australians are being warned not to import and self-prescribe” the drug. Donald Trump prominently talked up the drug as a COVID treatment, but trials have so far not been amazing — with Time reporting today a study from Columbia University found “people infected with COVID-19 taking hydroxychloroquine do not fare better than those not receiving the drug” (link).
Indeed, the ABF warned Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration “has warned that hydroxychloroquine poses serious risks to patients, including cardiac toxicity (potentially leading to sudden heart attacks), irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar (potentially leading to coma).”
‘Lab theory’ vs ‘wet market theory’ fight heats up
There’s more diplomatic dustups occurring behind closed doors, with Australian officials bristling at suggestions from Donald Trump’s White House that the coronavirus started in a Chinese lab. Australia has been leading international calls for an inquiry into the virus, and backs the evidence that the virus originated in an exotic animal ‘wet market’ in Wuhan. However, News Corp publications have been reporting on a dossier which reportedly “tied” the virus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (link).
The Nine newspapers reported this week on “rising suspicions within the Australian government and intelligence services that the US embassy in Canberra had leaked” the dossier (link). Australian officials are reportedly upset about this (link), fearing it will undermine their push for wet market changes. The Guardian reports Labor MP Anthony Byrne, deputy chair of the federal intelligence and security committee, feared “the episode was reminiscent of the saga surrounding intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003”, insofar as it was “a crude attempt to influence Australia to act against its national interest on the basis of intelligence that didn’t exist” (link). This story won’t be going away any time soon.
Trump closes, reopens COVID taskforce
Staying on the U.S. response, Donald Trump this week shuttered, then quickly reopened, his coronavirus task force (link). HuffPost reported the plan to close the team of health and government experts was “widely criticized as an attempt to shirk responsibility for the crisis by passing it onto state and local leaders, potentially shielding him from any blame over the country’s response in the lead-up to the November election.”
However, not long after announcing it would be wound up, Trump changed course — claiming he “had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday”.
Today’s stats:
The latest stats from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (as of 12.30pm AEST Friday) report 3,842,731 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 269,567 deaths.
The United States has 1,256,994 confirmed cases, with Spain next but far behind on 221,447, then Italy (215,858). The U.S. has the most deaths (75,661), then the United Kingdom (30,689) and Italy third on 29,958.
In Australia, the latest federal stats (as of 9pm Thursday) show 6896 cases, 6035 people recovered, 97 deaths, and 722,549 tests.
The latest Australian graph:
5 NON-CORONAVIRUS THINGS
The drama in Eden-Monaro continues. As reported this week, NSW Coalition colleagues Andrew Constance and John Barilaro both had their hats in the ring, then quickly changed their minds, amidst a mess of Nationals in-fighting and leaked text messages. Nationals deputy federal leader David Littleproud has had enough, slamming the “self-indulgent” episode this morning and saying fellow politicians “deserve an uppercut” for squabbling instead of focusing on — for instance— bushfire recovery in the region.
Staying on this weird gear, Constance has reportedly been dumped from his role as government leader in the NSW lower house (link), while Barilaro has been cleared after a police investigation for potentially breaching social distancing rules by visiting his Southern Tablelands farm recently (link). Barnaby Joyce is now calling for Barilaro to jump back in the race, because sure, why not?
And one final bit of Nationals drama, because we can never get enough. My former Network 10 colleague Jonathan Lea has a new series called The Back Story, chatting to politicians in long-form interviews. Jono has just released a “stunningly frank” hour-long sit-down with — who else? — Barnaby Joyce, where the former Nats leader talks about leadership spills, threatening Johnny Depp’s dogs, and a lot more. The full interview is on Youtube here, but in the Twitter clip below, Barnaby talks about his recent (failed) challenge against current leader Michael McCormack.
A New York Times report alleges “a group of hackers, called Naikon, that has previously been traced to the Chinese military” has deployed “hacking software, called Aria-body… against governments and state-owned companies in Australia and Southeast Asia” — including the WA state government (link).
Pete Evans has been let go from My Kitchen Rules (link).
IMPORTANT EVERY DAY
You “must” stay home at all times unless to shop for essential supplies; get medical care; exercise alone or with one other person; or work and education (more info here).
be hygienic; wash your hands properly, at least 30 seconds with soap and water, multiple times a day (here’s how you need to do it, plus a handy Dr Karl video tutorial); sneeze and cough into your elbows.
Listen to only official information from the World Health Organisation and legitimate health bodies — Don’t share dodgy stuff on Facebook. If it looks too good (or bad) to be true, it often is.
World Health Organisation latest statistics here
Australian government latest statistics here
Signing off - stay safe, be healthy, look after yourself and others
Josh