SCHOOLS CAUGHT UP IN OUTBREAK
Children are feeling the brunt of the Delta strain’s outbreak in Queensland, authorities say. Ten children under nine years old were confirmed to have COVID among the state’s 15 new cases yesterday, as ABC reported. Chief health officer Jeannette Young said she was worried that a total of six schools had so far been caught up in the state’s outbreak, with children making up most of the state’s 31 total infections, as The Courier Mail ($) reports.
Elsewhere, a private Sydney school has told parents that all Year 12 students will have to take a COVID test before they sit their trial HSC exams. The rapid antigen tests — known somewhat unfortunately as RAT — will need to be administered by a medical professional, the SMH reports, and several private contractors have already made a bid to supply the testing. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said yesterday she was “confident” Greater Sydney students from all other years would return to school before the end of the year, but that safety remained an issue, Guardian Australia says.
It comes as about 220,000 vulnerable 12 to 15-year-olds become eligible for the Pfizer vaccine next week, The Age reports. Among the cohort are those with underlying medical conditions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and kids living in remote communities. The Conversation spoke to five experts to understand whether all children should get vaccinated — and four said yes.
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THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
NSW’s long-awaited roadmap for emerging from lockdown will reportedly begin with the return of outdoor dining at pubs and clubs, reopened gyms, and kids back in the classroom, SMH reports. The roadmap has not been released, but the paper says two government sources familiar with the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity. It follows NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s target of between 50- and 60% of inoculated adults as the green light for easing restrictions, as Sky News reported.
NSW recorded 207 infections yesterday, with 105 of the new cases linked to a known case or cluster. That means the source of more than 100 cases is a mystery — and ABC reports that NSW’s former “gold standard” contact tracing has become overwhelmed. Sadly, yesterday a man in his 90s from southwest Sydney became the 15th person to die during this outbreak — he was one of several patients who contracted the virus in the aged care ward at Liverpool Hospital.
QUOTA UNQUOTA
Broadway musical Hamilton tells a political story of the US’s founding fathers but with one noticeable twist: the roles of white men are played by non-white actors, as part of a strict ethnicity quota. ABC’s Annabel Crabb, who is lifting the lid on parliament’s treatment of women, says there is an important lesson for Australian politics in this — “they succeed by compelling recruiters to look harder. To find merit where it might be hiding, rather than just hoping it’ll just show up with the usual casting crowd”.
But it’ll be an uphill battle to see change in the Liberal Party, Crabb says, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagging in March that he was “very open” to gender quotas. The Liberal Party has instead set a target of 50% female representation by 2025, but the ABC says 24 serving male parliamentarians would need to be “marched out of parliament and replaced with women” in order for that target to be met. Former Liberal senator Helen Kroger says the issue that the party faces is simple — “the term is a no-go zone”, she says, after the Labor Party took on the challenge in 1994. These days, Labor has 48% female representation in parliament, SBS says.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has an idea for getting people vaccinated — throw money at the problem. Albanese says Australians should be offered $300 if they are fully vaccinated by December, ABC reports. He says the cash payment would be a “much needed shot in the arm” — mind the pun — “for businesses and workers struggling from lockdowns”.
And he’s not the first to suggest such an approach — in the US, President Joe Biden called on the states and localities to do more to get people vaccinated, including giving them $100. NPR reports that everything from baseball tickets to pre-rolled marijuana joints and even lotteries of up to $5 million are already being used as incentives. So far, the approach has shown promise — Ohio’s department of health said their lottery boosted vaccination rates by 28% in a week. More locally, the Grattan Institute just last week called for a weekly lottery for vaccinated Australians to take place between Melbourne Cup day and Christmas to get people vaccinated.
If they can manage to book it, that is — the SMH reports hours-long waits on the online booking website, which can be so frustrating that a 28-year-old software developer made his own site that aggregates available Pfizer appointments. He said it cost him 20 bucks to make.
Enjoy your Tuesday — and keep an eye on your inbox this afternoon as we launch a brand new newsletter, WebCam, all about the biggest (and weirdest) stories on the Australian internet.
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
I said I didn’t want 18-year-olds to have AstraZeneca and I still don’t.
Jeannette Young
Queensland’s chief health officer has doubled down on her call for young adults to avoid AstraZeneca while acknowledging Delta as far “more likely to spread amongst younger people”. She was accused of adding fuel to the suspicions some already have about the jab, after last week’s Vaccine Hesitancy Report Card showed Queensland, at 30.9%, has the highest vaccine hesitancy in the country.
CRIKEY RECAP
Sky News ban shows that Turnbull was right: News Corp threatens more than democracy
“Sky News’ role in peddling pandemic misinformation plays the same dual role that Turnbull suggested in his Senate committee evidence in relation to national security. It has an indirect impact, in undermining health authorities, dividing the community, and promoting extremists, but it has a very direct impact in terms of affecting the behaviour of viewers.
“How many elderly Sky viewers have concluded, based on the misinformation peddled by the likes of [Alan] Jones, that they won’t get a vaccine? That, in fact, the whole pandemic is some anti-freedom plot? How many will become ill or even die as a result? Who’s accountable for that?”
Don’t thank YouTube for suspending Sky News. It’s a monster of its own making.
“Even if this decision was defensible, the company’s previous decisions to allow Sky News content to remain must also be considered. The platform has set up arbitrary rules for what does and doesn’t warrant being taking down. Misinformation on climate change, for example, isn’t removed. Why one type of fake news about an existential threat is allowed and another isn’t shows the absurdity of the rules that dictate one of the world’s largest sources of information.
“Sky News’ stumble may feel like a win for those who abhor the fringe views of its nighttime hosts, but it’s actually another reminder that control over what kind of information is allowed rests in the hands of unelected Silicon Valley tech types. And needless to say, they’re not motivated by concern for the health of Australia’s media ecosystem.”
What happened to the vaccine indemnity scheme? Don’t ask a doctor
“At a late night press conference over a month ago, Scott Morrison made a big announcement he hoped would get the vaccine rollout back on track. An indemnity scheme for general practitioners giving out the AstraZeneca vaccine — it was meant to cut through a lot of the hesitancy, and make it easier for younger people to get jabbed.
“But while there’s been an increase in interest from under 40s, and a push to widen uptake of the vaccine, the scheme still hasn’t been developed. Beyond a press release, and a promise it’ll be back-dated to the start of the vaccine rollout, GPs have no details about how it’ll actually work. Nobody does.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Two key moments were enough to see the Matildas lose to Sweden (ABC)
Calls to end ‘indiscriminate deaths’ after report reveals NSW shark nets kill a turtle every 20 days (Guardian Australia)
Elite soldier Ian Turner died by suicide shortly after doctors ordered he be watched: inquest (The Australian) ($)
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says no to a mask mandate for vaccinated people (CNN)
Belarus Olympian given Polish visa after refusing ‘forced’ flight home (BBC)
Man charged with impersonating federal cop following probe into fake video of AFP commissioner (The Australian) ($)
100-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard to be tried (The Guardian)
Danish study finds mixing COVID vaccines is effective (The New Daily)
US, UK accuse Taliban of ‘war crimes’ in south Afghan town (Al Jazeera)
Life as a stand-up comic can be brutal. ‘Safe space’ call-out culture is making it unbearable (Quillette)
How UAE-funded film The Misfits became anti-Qatar propaganda (Al Jazeera)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Like every other female, Laurel Hubbard’s rights matter — Susie O’Brien (Herald Sun) ($): “A talented junior weightlifter, Hubbard competed as a young man more than a decade ago. She started hormone therapy in 2012, resumed competing five years ago and has been successful enough to make it to the Olympics. But this is not enough for her critics, who have been bleating: “What about the women?” Well, Hubbard is a now a woman, and her rights should matter along with every other female. Her opponents point out that Hubbard is not like everyone else because her past as a male gives her an unfair advantage.
“There’s no doubt Hubbard is different; she’s up to a decade older and is taller and broader than some of her female weightlifting peers. However, this a sport for powerfully- built athletes. When Hubbard stood alongside the other Olympic lifters, she didn’t appear to be outrageously larger than the others. The fact that she made an early exit and didn’t win a medal will quieten — but not extinguish — the debate about transgender athletes.”
The absurdity of athletes choosing gold medals – Jake Niall (The Age): “The element of sportsmanship and emotion showed by the high jumpers in their golden moment was certainly memorable, uplifting even. But at its core it was utterly farcical. How can a gold medal outcome be negotiated by the athletes, essentially by invoking an impromptu non-compete agreement? These jumpers were pure in their motives, yes — it’s clear, as Seven athletics commentator and ex-Olympic long jumper David Culbert observed, that the pair didn’t know the rules for a tie.
“But the notion that athletes have a choice at all — a gentlemen’s agreement to not compete further — is utterly at odds with the concept of elite sport. And we do not need to expand upon the possibilities for corruption, for betting angles, to enter the equation. If there is to be a tie, it should not be up to the duelling competitors to call it … if this moment will endure in our memories, the flawed rules that allowed it surely won’t.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Australia
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Greens candidate for Cooper Celeste Liddle, the Martin Luther King Jr Center’s 2021 Youth Influencer of the Year Yasmin Poolem, and former Liberal MP Julia Banks discuss women in politics in a webinar hosted by ABC’s Patricia Karvelas for the Wheeler Centre.
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Authors Malla Nunn and Pip Harry will be in conversation to celebrate the launch of Sugar Town Queens, a fictional tale of a divided family and the power of friendship in South Africa.
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Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy will be in conversation with Essential Media’s Pete Lewis delving into the fortnight’s political news via webinar for the Australia Institute.
Canberra
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It’s day one of a two-day Extinction Rebellion protest, which aims to compel government action about climate change.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison will appear at the National Press Club for the C.E.W Bean Foundation’s war correspondents annual dinner.
Perth
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Premier Mark McGowan and Health Minister Roger Cook will provide an update on the vaccination rollout at the Kwinana Supa Centre.
It’s a terrifying future in a nation where vaccine privatisation and vaccine purchasing from mates only has resulted in us even more at risk.
And the reason why it’s out in the community is directly due to Berjikilian and her gold standard of leaky hotel rooms, instead of purpose built quarantine facilities on which Slimeball Moronisin refuses to spend a cent.
Dr Kelly said although he believed hospitals were “more prepared” than last year, they were still bracing themselves for a “nightmare scenario”.
“The reality is the cases are still rising” he said.
“We’re planning for large numbers of critically unwell patients with COVID.
“We have a three-stage plan and the final stage would be converting the entire ICU to a COVID ward. I really hope we don’t see that in Australia.
Thanks to the Berjiklian gold standard of hotel quarantine, the nation is now faced with the Delta strain community transmission.
The NSW Public Accountability Committee has reconvened its inquiry into the Berejiklian’s government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic response.
Committee chair NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge said:
”This inquiry is necessary to have accountability of government during a crisis. We still don’t know the various factors the government took into account, when Greater Sydney moved very slowly into a lockdown in mid-June.
By the time the citywide lockdown was announced, there were already COVID fragments being discovered in some dozen sewage treatment plants right across the Greater Sydney region.
It’s essential that we understand what factors other than public health advice were relied upon to decide when and how hard to go with the lockdown.
In that context, it’s important to remember the state budget was in the middle of that first seven day period.
It seems incredible that one of the most critical risks in a pandemic – in this case, the transportation of international flight crew – was handed out to a privatised firm with literally no public health oversight.
We need to understand how that happened and ensure that measures are being put in place so that kind of mistake is not repeated.
When you privatise and contract out critical public health functions in a pandemic, of course, that’s going to invite scrutiny and that’s what we are going to give it.
You can’t look at the public health response without understanding how unevenly and how unfairly pandemic and lockdown measures impact the community.
We have already seen how the same circumstances can cause significantly more disruption in southwest Sydney than they do in more affluent parts of the city, such as the east and the Northern Suburbs.
We all want people to comply with public health orders – to stay home and to stay safe – but, for that to happen, people need to have the economic security and the supports in place for them to safely do that.
At the moment, those arrangements are so patchy that they push against the public health messaging.
There are clearly competing lines of thought within the Berejiklian cabinet about how to respond to the lockdown.
There are voices in her team who are calling for the near complete removal of the lockdown and to let the pandemic explode.
There are other influencing voices who are clearly representing specific industries that have traditionally been very powerful, such as the construction sector.
We need to ensure that the decision-making is primarily guided by public health advice and public health measures that keep all of us safe.
We don’t want to just respond to one or two well-funded or well-connected industries or, worse still, to some of the anti-science conspirators who are within the Coalition government ranks.”