Australia
Australia's New South Wales sets new daily COVID case record
Australia’s most populous state reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases on Sunday and a sharp jump in hospitalizations while thousands of people were isolating at home after contracting the virus or coming into contact with someone who has.
New South Wales reported 6,394 new infections, up from 6,288 a day earlier. Case numbers in the state have surged over the past two weeks but hospitalizations have lagged behind new infections.
More than 70 percent of cases in some Australian states are the omicron variant of the coronavirus but New South Wales does not routinely carry out genome testing to identify the variant. State Health Minister Brad Hazzard indicated Sunday that omicron is widespread.
READ: Australia's Queensland state to open to vaccinated travelers
“We would expect that pretty well everybody in New South Wales at some point will get omicron,” Hazzard said. “If we’re all going to get omicron, the best way to face it is when we have full vaccinations including our booster.”
Health officials reported 458 active cases in hospitals across the state, up sharply from 388 the day before. There were 52 people in intensive care in New South Wales.
Victoria, the country's second most populous state, reported 1,608 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Sunday, with 374 people in hospitals, including 77 in intensive care.
More than 30,000 people in Victoria spent Christmas isolating at home, unable to celebrate with family or friends. Of those, about half were reported to be active cases who contracted the virus in the days leading up to Christmas.
Doctors and pharmacists in New South Wales have said they are running short of vaccine doses amid a rush for shots spurred by concern over the omicron variant.
Australia PM meets with state leaders as virus cases surge
New COVID-19 cases in Australia’s most populous state surged to a pandemic record Wednesday, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison met with state leaders to discuss preventative measures.
Morrison emerged from the national cabinet meeting again rejecting lockdowns and mask mandates imposed by the federal government. He said policies on mask wearing were best left to state governments and to Australians who should follow “commonsense behavioral measures.”
New South Wales state on Wednesday recorded 3,763 new cases, up 706 from Tuesday, though the number of omicron cases was not known because genomic sequencing is not routinely carried out there.
State and territory leaders were expected to press Morrison to reduce the gap between second vaccine doses and booster shots. Morrison said any decision on reducing the gap from five to four months would be made by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization.
Australia has been battling the omicron variant of COVID-19 for about four weeks and cases have been steadily rising in populous New South Wales and Victoria states.
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Victoria reported 1,503 cases on Wednesday, of which about 60 were reportedly omicron.
Morrison said Australia is taking the highly transmissible omicron strain “very seriously,” adding that “what we’re dealing with is a much greater volume of cases.”
“The cases themselves don’t necessarily present the challenge, as we’ve always said. What really matters is how many people are experiencing serious illness and how many people are having to draw on the considerable resources of ICUs and our hospital system,” he added.
Morrison said state and territory leaders told him that despite the increase in cases they have not yet seen any significant impact on the hospital system.
The federal government from Wednesday will pay doctors and pharmacists an additional $10 to administer booster shots, Morrison said.
Read: 5 children die in bouncy castle accident in Australia
He said that mask wearing indoors is “highly recommended whether it is mandated or not” and that compliance with “commonsense rules” would ensure Australians celebrate Christmas with fewer disruptions.
“My message is to stay calm, get your booster, follow the commonsense behavioral measures as you’re going into Christmas and we look forward to that,” Morrison said.
WHO: Omicron detected in 89 countries, cases doubling fast
The omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in 89 countries, and COVID-19 cases involving the variant are doubling every 1.5 to 3 days in places with community transmission and not just infections acquired abroad, the World Health Organization said Saturday.
Omicron's “substantial growth advantage” over the delta variant means it is likely to soon overtake delta as the dominant form of the virus in countries where the new variant is spreading locally, the U.N. health agency said.
READ: Netherlands 'going into lockdown again' to curb omicron
WHO noted that omicron is spreading rapidly even in countries with high vaccination rates or where a significant proportion of the population has recovered from COVID-19.
It remains unclear if the rapid growth of omicron cases is because the variant evades existing immunity, is inherently more transmissible than previous variants, or a combination of both, WHO said.
READ: WHO: Omicron detected in 89 countries, cases doubling fast
Other major questions about omicron remain unanswered, including how effective each of the existing COVID-19 vaccines are against it. Conclusive data also does not exist yet on how ill omicron makes COVID-19 patients, the health agency said.
WHO first labeled omicron a variant of concern on Nov. 26.
5 children die in bouncy castle accident in Australia
Five children died and four others were in critical condition on Thursday after falling from a bouncy castle that was lifted 10 meters (33 feet) into the air by a gust of wind at a school on Australia's island state of Tasmania.
The school was holding a celebration to mark the end of the school year.
The children who died included two boys and two girls in year 6, which would make them 10 or 11 years old, said Tasmania police Commissioner Darren Hine. Police later Thursday confirmed a fifth child died in the hospital.
Five other children were being treated, including four in critical condition. Hine said an investigation is underway.
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Images published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation showed police officers consoling each other as paramedics provided first aid to victims.
Parents arrived at the school gate to collect their children as helicopters ferried the injured to hospitals.
Tasmania state Premier Peter Gutwein called the incident “simply inconceivable... I know this is a strong and caring community that will stand together and support one another."
Tasmania police commander Debbie Williams told reporters “several children fell from the jumping castle. It appears they may have fallen from a height of approximately 10 meters."
“This is a very tragic event and our thoughts are with the families and the wider school community and also our first responders,” Williams said.
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Solomon Islands violence recedes but not underlying tension
Violence receded Friday in the capital of the Solomon Islands, but the government showed no signs of addressing the underlying grievances that sparked two days of riots, including concerns about the country's increasing links with China.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare sought to deflect attention from domestic issues by blaming outside interference for stirring up the protesters, with a thinly veiled reference to Taiwan and the United States.
External pressures were a “very big ... influence. I don’t want to name names. We’ll leave it there,” Sogavare said.
Honiara’s Chinatown and its downtown precinct were focuses of rioters, looters and protesters who demanded the resignation of Sogavare, who has intermittently been prime minister since 2000.
Sogavare has been widely criticized by leaders of the country's most populous island of Malaita for a 2019 decision to drop diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of mainland China. His government, meanwhile, has been upset over millions in U.S. aid promised directly to Malaita, rather than through the central government.
Those issues are just the latest in decades of rivalry between Malaita and Guadalcanal, where the capital, Honiara, is located, said Jonathan Pryke, director of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank's Pacific Islands program.
Read:Australia to welcome vaccinated foreign students, workers
"Most of the drivers of the tension have been in the country for many decades and generations, and a lot of it is born out of the abject poverty of the country, the limited economic development opportunities and the inter-ethnic and inter-island rivalry between the two most populous islands," he said.
“So everyone's pointing fingers, but some fingers also need to be pointed at the political leaders of the Solomon Islands.”
The Solomon Islands, with a population of about 700,000, are located about 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) northeast of Australia. Internationally they are probably still best known for the bloody fighting that took place there during World War II between the United States and Japan.
Riots and looting erupted Wednesday out of a peaceful protest in Honiara, primarily of people from Malaita demonstrating over a number of grievances. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the demonstrators, who set fire to the National Parliament, a police station and many other buildings.
Protesters defied a lockdown declared by Sogavare on Wednesday to take to the streets again on Thursday.
Critics also blamed the unrest on complaints of a lack of government services and accountability, corruption and Chinese businesses giving jobs to foreigners instead of locals.
Since the 2019 shift in allegiance from Taiwan to China there has been an expectation of massive infrastructure investment from Beijing — locally rumored to be in the range of $500 million — but with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after the shift, none of that has yet materialized.
Malaita threatened to hold a referendum on independence over the issue, but that was quashed by Sogavare's government.
Sogavare said Friday that he stood by his government’s decision to embrace Beijing, which he described as the “only issue” in the violence, which was “unfortunately influenced and encouraged by other powers.”
“I’m not going to bow down to anyone. We are intact, the government’s intact and we’re going to defend democracy,” he said.
More than broad geopolitical concerns, however, Pryke said the demonstrations really boiled down to frustration over the lack of opportunities for a largely young population, and the concentration of much of the country's wealth in the capital.
“I guarantee you the vast majority of the people involved in the rioting and looting couldn't point China or Taiwan out on a map,” he said. “They were there as opportunists because they have had very limited economic opportunity. It's a very poor country with high youth unemployment, and this just shows how quickly these things can spiral out of control in a country that's volatile.”
A plane carrying Australian police and diplomats arrived late Thursday in Honiara to help local police restore order.
Up to 50 more Australian police as well 43 defense force personnel with a navy patrol boat were scheduled to arrive on Friday.
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They were requested by Sogavare under a bilateral treaty with Australia, and the presence of an independent force, though small, seemed to help quell some of the violence.
Australia has a history of assisting the Solomon Islands, stepping in after years of bloody ethnic violence known as “the tensions” in 2003. The Australian-led international police and military force called the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands helped restore the peace and left in 2017.
The Australian personnel are expected to be on hand for “a matter of weeks," according Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
Payne told reporters on Friday that she had no indication that other countries had stirred up the unrest.
“We have not indicated that at all,” Payne said.
Australia is not assisting in the protection of the National Parliament and the executive buildings, in a sign that it was not taking political sides.
“We’ve been very clear. Our view is we don’t want to see violence," Payne said. “We would very much hope for a return to stability."
Local journalist Gina Kekea said the foreign policy switch to Beijing with little public consultation was one of a mix of issues that led to the protests. There were also complaints that foreign companies were not providing local jobs.
“Chinese businesses and (other) Asian businesses ... seem to have most of the work, especially when it comes to extracting resources, which people feel strongly about,” Kekea said.
Protesters were replaced by looters and scavengers on Friday in Chinatown, Kekea said.
“It’s been two days, two whole days of looting and protesting and rioting and Honiara is just a small city,” Kekea said. The capital has 85,000 residents.
“So I think that there’s nothing much left for them to loot and spoil now,” she said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison questioned whether Chinese citizens and businesses were being targeted. He described the unrest as “a bit of a mixed story” and noted Chinatown was the scene of rioting before Australia’s 2003 intervention.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Friday condemned the violence and stressed Beijing's support for the Solomon Islands government. He said China was taking measures to safeguard the safety and rights of Chinese people and institutions in the country.
“We believe that under the leadership of Prime Minister Sogavare, the Solomon government can restore order and stabilize the internal situation as soon as possible,” he said.
The establishment of diplomatic ties with Beijing “has won sincere support of the people," and "any attempts to undermine the normal development of China-Solomon relations are futile,” Zhao said.
Australia to welcome vaccinated foreign students, workers
The Australian government expects 200,000 vaccinated foreign students and skilled workers will soon return without quarantining when the country further relaxes pandemic restrictions next week.
From Dec. 1, students, skilled workers and travelers on working vacations will be allowed to land at Sydney and Melbourne airports without needing to seek exemptions from a travel ban, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Monday.
“The return of skilled workers and students to Australia is a major milestone in our pathway back, it’s a major milestone about what Australians have been able to achieve and enable us to do,” Morrison said.
The government expects 200,000 arrivals in the two categories by January, he said.
Vaccinated citizens of Japan and South Korea will also be allowed in without quarantining, as well as people on humanitarian visas.
But the government has yet to decide when general tourists will be allowed to return.
Read: Global Covid cases near 258 million amid vaccination
“I think Australians are very keen to see us take this step-by-step approach,” Morrison said.
“They’ve been through a lot and they’ve sacrificed a lot to ensure that we can open safely so we can stay safely open,” he added.
While vaccinated travelers will be able to arrive without quarantining in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia’s most populous states, parts of the country with lower vaccination rates still impose pandemic restrictions at state lines.
After a troubled and faltering start, Australia’s vaccine rollout has gathered pace. More than 85% of the population aged 16 and older is now fully vaccinated.
Australia first reopened its border to quarantine-free travelers on Nov. 1 after 20 months of some of the most draconian pandemic restrictions adopted by any democratic country. Arrivals were first restricted to Australian citizens and permanent residents.
The first flights in an Australia-Singapore quarantine-free travel bubble began on Sunday.
Some Australian farmers have left fruit and vegetables to rot in fields because the backpackers who provide the seasonal workforce of pickers have been absent.
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The backpackers were some of Australia’s highest yielding visitors, spending 3.2 billion Australian dollars ($2.3 billion) a year before the pandemic. They also made up a substantial part of the seasonal workforce, Business Group Australia executive director John Hart said in a statement.
Universities Australia chief executive Catrina Jackson said her sector lost AU$1.8 billion ($1.3 billion) last year because foreign students were locked out.
“We’ve got 130,000 students waiting to get back into this country. They’ve been so patient and they’ve been so resolute. They’ve been studying online for ... almost two years now,” Jackson told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Some of them have just got a year left of their degree. It really is time to get them back into the country so they can finish their degree and get on with their lives,” Jackson said.
Australia wants Facebook to seek parental consent for kids
Australia plans to crack down on online advertisers targeting children by making social media platforms seek parental consent for users younger than 16 years old to join or face fines of 10 million Australian dollars ($7.5 million) under a draft law released Monday.
The landmark legislation would protect Australians online and ensure that Australia’s privacy laws are appropriate in the digital age, a government statement said.
Social media platforms would be required to take all reasonable steps to verify their users’ ages under a binding code for social media services, data brokers and other large online platforms operating in Australia.
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The platforms would also have to give primary consideration to the best interests of children when handling their personal information, the draft legislation states.
The code would also require platforms to obtain parental consent for users under the age of 16.
The proposed legal changes come after former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen this month asserted that whenever there was a conflict between the public good and what benefited the company, the social media giant would choose its own interests.
Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention David Coleman said the new code would lead the world in protecting children from social media companies.
“In Australia, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a consistent increase in signs of distress and mental ill health among young people. While the reasons for this are varied and complex, we know that social media is part of the problem,” Coleman said in a statement.
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Facebook regional director of public policy Mia Garlick said her platform had been calling for Australia’s privacy laws to evolve with new technology.
“We have supported the development of international codes around young people’s data, like the U.K. Age Appropriate Design Code,” Garlick said in a statement, referring to British legislation introduced this year that requires platforms to verify users’ ages if content risks the moral, physical or mental well-being of children.
“We’re reviewing the draft bill and discussion paper released today, and look forward to working with the Australian government on this further,” she added.
Australia has been a prominent voice in calling for international regulation of the internet.
It passed laws this year that oblige Google and Facebook to pay for journalism. Australia also defied the tech companies by creating a law that could imprison social media executives if their platforms stream violent images.
Australia's Queensland state to open to vaccinated travelers
Australia’s Queensland state announced plans Monday to open up to vaccinated travelers, ending the status it has enjoyed throughout the pandemic of remaining virtually free of COVID-19.
Queensland and Western Australia have been among the states most successful in keeping COVID-19 out, and they also were among the most reluctant to relax their strict border controls after the highly contagious delta variant took hold in New South Wales state in June and spread through Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.
Queensland authorities warned infection rates would rise and remain high for months.
Read:Australia official urges against AstraZeneca
“For almost 600 days for nearly two years we have kept the virus out of Queensland,” Treasurer Cameron Dick said. “Those days will soon come to an end. This will be the end of the zero COVID for Queensland."
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said fully vaccinated travelers would be allowed into the state without quarantining when 80% of the state’s population aged 16 and older was vaccinated. That benchmark is expected to be achieved by Dec. 17.
Travelers would also need to test negative to COVID-19 within three days before entering the state.
Read:Australia battles several clusters in new pandemic phase
Vaccinated travelers will be allowed into Queensland when 70% of the target population is vaccinated, a target expected to be reached by Nov. 19, but will face restrictions including 14 days of quarantine on arrival.
“I think Queenslanders will acknowledge that that is a sensible and cautious approach to ensure that families can be reunited but the people coming into Queensland will have to be fully vaccinated,” Palaszczuk said. “The faster we are vaccinated, the faster these deadlines will be achieved.”
Police investigate deaths of 3 young children in New Zealand
Three young children who had just moved to New Zealand from South Africa have died in what police said Friday they're investigating as homicide.
Police said they were not looking for any possible suspects beyond those involved in the incident late Thursday at a home in the South Island town of Timaru. They said emergency services had found a woman at the address who had been hospitalized in stable condition.
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Police said the children were 3-year-old twins and a 7-year-old who were all siblings. All those involved had recently moved from South Africa to New Zealand, police said, and had moved out of a mandatory coronavirus quarantine facility within the past week.
In a brief news conference, police said the investigation was in its early stages and they couldn't yet release many details, including the names of the children or how they died.
Inspector Dave Gaskin, the Aoraki area commander, said the deaths would be “incredibly distressing” for residents of Timaru, particularly after five teenagers from the town were killed in a car crash last month.
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The Stuff news organization said neighbors Karen and Brad Cowper called police just after 10 p.m. when they heard a man screaming and crying. The neighbors said they asked the man if he was OK but he didn't respond other than to say: “Is this really happening?”
Stuff reported the family was living in accommodation for hospital staff, and both the man and woman were medical professionals.
Australian court rules media liable for Facebook comments
Australia’s highest court on Wednesday made a landmark ruling that media outlets are “publishers” of allegedly defamatory comments posted by third parties on their official Facebook pages.
The High Court dismissed an argument by some of Australia’s largest media organizations — Fairfax Media Publications, Nationwide News and Australian News Channel — that for people to be publishers, they must be aware of the defamatory content and intend to convey it.
The court found in a 5-2 majority decision that by facilitating and encouraging the comments, the companies had participated in their communication.
The decision opens the media organizations to be sued for defamation by former juvenile detainee Dylan Voller.
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Voller wants to sue the television broadcaster and newspaper publishers over comments on the Facebook pages of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Centralian Advocate, Sky News Australia and The Bolt Report.
His defamation case launched in the New South Wales state Supreme Court in 2017 was put on hold while the separate question of whether the media companies were liable for Facebook users’ comments was decided.
The companies posted content on their pages about news stories that referred to Voller’s time in a Northern Territory juvenile detention center.
Facebook users responded by posting comments that Voller alleges were defamatory.
News Corp Australia, which owns the two broadcast programs and two of the three newspapers targeted in the defamation case, called for the law to be changed.
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The ruling was “significant for anyone who maintains a public social media page by finding they can be liable for comments posted by others on that page even when they are unaware of those comments,” News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller said in a statement.
“This highlights the need for urgent legislative reform and I call on Australia’s attorneys general to address this anomaly and bring Australian law into line with comparable western democracies,” Miller added.
Nine, the new owner of The Sydney Morning Herald, said it hoped a current review of defamation laws by Australian state and territory governments would take into account the ruling and its consequences for publishers.
“We are obviously disappointed with the outcome of that decision, as it will have ramifications for what we can post on social media in the future,” a Nine statement said.
“We also note the positive steps which the likes of Facebook have taken since the Voller case first started which now allow publishers to switch off comments on stories,” Nine added.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Voller’s lawyers welcomed the ruling for its wider implications for publishers.
“This is a historic step forward in achieved justice for Dylan and also in protecting individuals, especially those who are in a vulnerable position, from being the subject of unmitigated social media mob attacks,” a lawyers’ statement said.
“This decision put responsibility where it should be; on media companies with huge resources, to monitor public comments in circumstances where they know there is a strong likelihood of an individual being defamed,” the statement added.
The High Court decision upholds the rulings of two lower courts on the question of liability.
Courts have previously ruled that people can be held liable for the continued publication of defamatory statements on platforms they control, such as notice boards, only after they became aware of the comments.