We are just standing by now for the NSW press conference where health minister Brad Hazzard will announce the daily numbers.
NSW-Queensland border bubble is also under threat with the revelation a person with Covid-19 was infectious in several northern NSW communities for two days, reports AAP.
1.48am BST
Here is the new Western Australian campaign encouraging people to roll up their sleeves and get the jab:
There is only one way out of the pandemic - to get life back to what we know and love, and safeguard what we’re so lucky to have.
Two men tried to reach city – where Covid restrictions banned takeaways – with $100,000, three buckets of chicken and an undisclosed quantity of fries, police say
Two men have been arrested after police said they found them with a car boot-full of Kentucky fried chicken and over $100,000 in cash as they tried to cross the border into Auckland despite New Zealand’s strict Covid-19 lockdown.
The men were arrested after allegedly trying to flee from police near the Auckland border. When their car was searched, police said they found a large quantity of KFC, as well as the cash and a number of empty ounce bags.
Overseas New Zealanders trying to return home are facing a queue tens of thousands of people long, as the country reopens bookings to cross the border.
The country’s borders have been strictly controlled since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – only citizens, permanent residents and a handful of essential workers can enter, and all of them must make a booking to spend two weeks in government-controlled quarantine (MIQ).
Boris Johnson has refused to guarantee that he will not have to disrupt Christmas gatherings for a second year running by imposing Covid restrictions, though he insisted it was “very much not the plan”.
Last year the prime minister repeatedly struck an upbeat note about Christmas before imposing stringent last-minute conditions preventing many people from seeing friends and family as the Alpha variant spread rapidly.
Global financial markets have fallen sharply amid concern over rising inflation and the threat of contagion in China’s property sector from the debt-stricken developer Evergrande, despite a boost from the relaxation of US travel rules.
Markets around the world came under selling pressure, with the FTSE 100 in the UK slumping by 60 points, or 0.9%, to 6,903.
The number of Australians stranded overseas who need government help to return home has surged to more than 45,000, after a further tightening of arrival caps and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
While the register of stranded Australians was initially set up by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for those requiring assistance because of Covid-related travel issues, registrations from Australians left behind in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have increased significantly since the evacuation mission ended late last month.
Tallen Robinson’s 14th birthday fell the first weekend of the school holidays but he spent it away from his family in Wee Waa, in the north-west area of NSW, and away from his Indigenous community.
Robinson is one of 3,744 Indigenous students attending boarding schools in Australia, according to the Australian Boarding Schools Association’s 2021 census, many of whom have found the pandemic has created barriers of access to educational opportunities and to their families.
The two jurisdictions grappling with the most severe Covid outbreaks, New South Wales and Victoria, have revealed their plans for reopening, providing those living with lockdown with some sense of what the future may hold.
Both states will ease some restrictions once 70% of the eligible population age 16 and above are fully vaccinated, with further easing at 80%. But when will those targets be reached, and how and why do the plans differ?
The Labour for a Green New Deal campaign has welcomed a decision from Labour’s conference arrangements committee that its green new deal motion can be debated at the party conference. Originally CAC blocked the motion on the grounds that it was too wide-ranging. The motion is strongly backed by the pro-Corbyn group Momentum and includes proposals like universal free broadband and the repeal of all anti trade union laws.
Labour for a Green New Deal co-founder Chris Saltmarsh said:
Conference next week will now be a chance for the whole party to come together and embrace a green new deal which is built on public ownership and mass investment, and spans right across our economy, from green technology to universal basic services such as transport and care.
London cannot stop “significant numbers” of people from travelling without masks, Sadiq Khan has admitted, as he appealed to the government to restore the law or assist the capital in passing a bylaw to ensure face-coverings are used.
The London mayor spoke of his “frustration” at the reduction in compliance on the tube and buses since national rules changed on 19 July. Mask-wearing to tackle Covid transmission remains a condition of carriage on Transport for London services, but is no longer mandatory nationwide.
As of 18 September, data shows that the proportion of fully vaccinated under-30s is 54.6% in England and 55.3% in Scotland (the government dashboard doesn’t provide detailed age breakdowns for Wales and Northern Ireland) based on ONS population figures as opposed to counts by GP records, which are a more volatile denominator.
“We have literally fed all sections of the community,” Fr Tom Davis, the chair of the trustees of Oldham Foodbank, says of the charity’s work in the town in Greater Manchester during the pandemic. “People struggling with kids being at home during lockdown and needing more meals, people on furlough who got into huge debt, homeless people who were put into hostels, and a couple who were living in a car.”
Some US horse owners are finding ivermectin hard to come by, due to the anti-parasitic’s popularity as an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment for Covid-19 in humans.
In news sure to be greeted by parents across the US, Pfizer and BioNTech said on Monday children aged five to 11 are on track to receive the two companies’ Covid-19 vaccination by Halloween.
Hong Kong stock fell up to 19% amid default fears that are beginning to have a knock-on effect on other markets
Shares in the embattled Chinese property company Evergrande have plunged again as investors weigh up whether the group’s massive debt problems could trigger a broader sell off across all financial markets.
Righto then, once more with feeling. We are actually closing this news odyssey now. My usual thanks and best wishes. Be well, all of you.
10.37am BST
OK – the shutdown to Victorian construction has not yet been confirmed. But this is what we can tell you now:
The Victorian government is holding crisis talks with the construction industry and unions after a protest against mandatory vaccines for workers in the sector became violent.
The Victorian government has warned people not to wait for the Pfizer vaccine, with the commonwealth advising state and territory leaders it is still unsure when more than 9m doses due in October will arrive.
On Monday, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said the head of the national vaccine taskforce, Lt Gen John Frewen, had advised states of a “problem” with Pfizer supplies in October, urging people to book in for AstraZeneca rather than wait.