Western Australia has recorded one new locally-acquired coronavirus case since the Perth and Peel regions where plunged into a three-day lockdown.
The new outbreak, linked to a Perth quarantine hotel, sparked a war of words between WA Premier Mark McGowan and the federal government.
Canberra has rejected Mr McGowan’s suggestions that defence and immigration facilities be used and says they are simply inappropriate and unsuitable.
Western Australia has recorded one new locally-acquired coronavirus case since the Perth and Peel regions where plunged into a three-day lockdown
LATEST COVID-19 DEVELOPMENTS:
* Western Australia has recorded an additional positive COVID-19 case within the community, in a person who had visited one of the locations visited by a Victorian man.
* Three community cases are now linked to the Perth Mercure Hotel.
* The virus spread in the corridors of the quarantine hotel in Perth, infecting a man staying adjacent an infected couple who returned from India. He tested negative before departing for Victoria, spending time in venues across Perth, and infecting a friend.
* The friend’s positive test result was announced on Friday – she’s a Perth mother the man stayed with when he left quarantine.
Three community cases are now linked to the Perth Mercure Hotel
* West Australian Premier Mark McGowan’s latest demands for greater Commonwealth assistance with quarantine facilities has prompted a comprehensive smack-down from the federal government.
* Canberra has rejected Mr McGowan’s suggestions that defence and immigration facilities be used and says they are simply inappropriate and unsuitable.
* WA’s Perth and Peel regions on Saturday began a three-day lockdown after a hotel quarantine outbreak led to community transmission.
* Anzac Day dawn services will be cancelled and people must wear masks when leaving their homes.
* Mr McGowan said he remained deeply frustrated Canberra had not supplanted the hotel quarantine framework with permanent facilities and suggested commonwealth facilities at Curtin Air Base near Derby could hold 1500 people and Christmas Island could also be used.
* However, Mr Morrison was adamant everyone agreed at national cabinet in March last year that as quarantine arrangements were determined under state and territory health orders, those jurisdictions would manage hotel quarantine.
* He said the Commonwealth had contributed to the effort by continuously expanding the Howard Springs facility in the NT.
* Four close contacts of the infected traveller who flew from Perth to Melbourne tested negative along with dozens of fellow passengers.
* Some 265 passengers, crew and ground staff associated with QF778 in total were contacted by Victorian health authorities and told to get tested and self-isolate for two weeks.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan’s latest demands for greater Commonwealth assistance with quarantine facilities has prompted a comprehensive smack-down from the federal government
* A Queensland man diagnosed with a rare blood clotting reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine has been discharged from a Brisbane hospital.
* He was one of three such patients identified by the Therapeutic Goods Administration whose conditions ‘were likely linked to vaccination’.
* All 15 Sydney dock workers who boarded a ship that had COVID-positive crew members aboard have tested negative.
* The Inge Kosan, an LPG tanker, was docked in Port Botany for a day from March 31 after arriving from PNG. It’s since been confirmed 12 out of 13 crew members tested positive but the wharfies who boarded the vessel in Sydney are all in the clear.
* The Northern Territory had 10 new cases in hotel quarantine and South Australia, one, a child in a medi-hotel.
Medical staff at work at a drive through covid testing site in Inglewood, Perth
AUSTRALIAN CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:
* Australia reported three locally acquired virus cases on Saturday, in WA. A Victorian man who acquired the virus in Perth hotel quarantine, a Perth friend of the man whose positive result was made known on Friday, and another WA person who had close contact with the Victorian man, whose result came through Saturday afternoon.
There were 15 new overseas-acquired cases in quarantine: 10 in the NT, one in SA, one in Victoria, one in Queensland, one in NSW and one in WA.
* The national death toll is 910: Victoria 820, NSW 56, Tasmania 13, WA 9, Queensland 7, SA 4, ACT 3 (Two Queensland residents who died in NSW have been included in the official tolls of both states).
GLOBAL CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:
* Cases: at least 145,667,826
* Deaths: at least 3,086,803
* Recovered: at least 83,801,691
Data current as of 1815 AEST on April 24, taking in federal and state/territory government updates and Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre figures.
