A Melbourne family has been taken into hotel quarantine under police guard after they travelled to Adelaide after having unknowingly visited a coronavirus exposure site.
Additional exposure sites have been added across the Melbourne area after new COVID-19 cases linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak.
Marie and Raymond Ottone endured days of uncertainty after a confirmed case visited the Avondale Heights osteopathy clinic where their daughter Celine was treated on Friday morning.
The trio flew to Adelaide to visit family on Saturday, when the location was not listed as a hotspot.
It wasn't until Tuesday that Victorian authorities contacted Celine to confirm she was a close contact.
Victorian authorities door-knocked the family to ensure they were isolating, but the clinic remains off the list of exposure sites.
South Australia Health became involved, with the trio told to stay in an enclosed room at a family member's home for the night before being transferred to a quarantine hotel yesterday with a police escort.
"What about everyone that she was on the plane with if she's a primary?" Ms Ottone said.
"What about the casino we went to and the shopping centres that we've been to here?"
Victoria's coronavirus testing chief Jeroen Weimar said publicising the venue wouldn't be helpful and he was confident health authorities had identified anyone at risk.
"We do not think it is reasonable or any additional benefit to publicising public venues because we are not asking people to self identify, come forward and say 'I was there the day before after'," he said.
"That is not helpful. We are pleased the family is being supported in Adelaide."
Mr Weimar today confirmed a third case was linked to the hotel outbreak.
Meanwhile two earlier infections recorded this morning were confirmed to be the spouses of two food and beverage workers at the Holiday Inn.
One of the spouses confirmed to have the UK variant of the virus is understood to be linked to Camberwell Grammar school, although it has not yet been added to the exposure site list.
WASHINGTON/PORT-AU-PRINCE – The head of the Civilian Tribunal of Croix-des-Bouquets has ordered the release of Supreme Court Justice Yvickel Dabresil.
The justice was one of 23 people arrested early Sunday in connection with an alleged coup attempt. A video produced by the Haitian National Intelligence Service and distributed to the press begins with mobile phone footage of Dabresil shortly after his arrest.
According to local media, the judge remains in detention at the Croix-des-Bouquets Government Commissioner’s office, pending the enforcement of the release order.
Seventeen others who were arrested in a sting operation regarding the alleged coup attempt remain in detention.
On Tuesday, Dabresil was transferred out of the National Police Force Investigations Unit facility (DCPJ – Direction Centrale Police Judiciare – Haitian equivalent of the FBI) to a facility in Croix-des-Bouquets, located 13 kilometers northeast of Port-au-Prince. A VOA Creole reporter said the judge was transferred without being arraigned.
Johnny Fils Aime a reporter for Radio Kajou in Port-au-Prince was treated for two broken bones in his leg after an encounter with police while covering an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb. 9, 2021. (VOA/ Matiado Vilme)
According to a human rights activist who visited Dabresil in detention, the justice refused to respond to DCPJ questions. Because Dabresil is an officer of the highest court of law in the nation, his legal authority supercedes that of the lower court judges, according to Haiti’s constitution.
Judge Samuel Madistin questioned the legality of Dabresil’s arrest.
“I think the arrest was completely illegal,” Madistin said in an interview with a Haitian radio station, citing the fact that legal procedures were not followed. According to Madistin, the justice of the peace who is required to be on the premises before an arrest warrant is served was absent.
But in an exclusive interview with VOA Creole on Tuesday, President Jovenel Moise defended the operation that led to the arrests.
VOA Creole reporter Florence Lisene filed a complaint against National Police officers who attacked journalists covering a peaceful anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince.
“The chief of the tribunal of Port-au-Prince was asked by a journalist who has jurisdiction over crimes against the state. He responded if you pull off a coup d’etat, you are a hero. If you don’t, we will judge you as a criminal in a court of law with a jury,” Moise said.
Pressed on the questionable circumstances of the arrest, Moise pushed back.
“A plot against the state isn’t something that happens in a day, to invade the (national) palace, you would need a thousand people. This coup was planned. A national palace security officer was contacted by the plotters — a foreigner contacted him to plan a coup d’etat and it was so well planned that they even had an arrest warrant with the president’s name on it. We must be able to speak frankly about these things,” Moise said.
The U.S. State Department and United Nations have expressed concern about the recent developments in Haiti.
“We understand the Haitian National Police is investigating 23 individuals who were arrested over the weekend. The situation remains murky, and we await the results of the police investigation,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.
WASHINGTON/PORT-AU-PRINCE – Journalists covering a peaceful protest against President Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince were attacked by members of Haiti’s national police force with tear gas Wednesday.
According to reporters, police first fired tear gas to disperse a large crowd of protesters who were marching through the streets of the capital chanting, “Jovenel’s term is over. Down with dictatorship!”
After breaking up the protest, police turned on reporters, firing tear gas and spraying an unknown substance in their faces. At one point, a police unit fired tear gas into a pickup truck belonging to Radio-TV Pacific transporting at least 10 people, overwhelming it with smoke.
VOA Creole reporter Matiado Vilme said members of the media had their press badges visible to law enforcement. Some wore bulletproof vests with the words “Press” printed on the front and back. When Vilme took cover behind a nearby pole, she said, she was followed by a police officer who fired a tear gas cannister at her feet.
Shaken and furious, the group of journalists with cameras, microphones, mobile phones and various other reporting equipment held high, walked to the Bureau for the Western Department (Bureau Departmental de l’Ouest) to file a complaint against the police.
“We spoke to the DDO (Directeur du Departement de l’Ouest, Paul Menard). We explained the situation and gave him examples of journalists who had been victimized by the police,” said Florence Lisene, a VOA Creole stringer who was one of three journalists who filed the complaint.
“The only guarantee he gave us was that he was going to bring this complaint to the police chief to be examined and investigated. He also said they would investigate the police backup who committed these actions to determine what disciplinary measures are warranted,” Lisene said.
VOA Creole tried to contact Menard for comment but was unsuccessful.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told VOA: “The United States has seen reports of police injuring journalists as they attempted to disperse recent demonstrations. We call on Haitian authorities to respect the freedoms of expression and association and the right to peaceful assembly, and we call on the Haitian National Police Inspector General to conduct a thorough investigation of these incidents.”
The Haitian Online Media Association (ANMH) issued a statement denouncing the attack.
“ANMH vehemently condemns the barbaric acts committed by the police, of which journalists were victims over the past days,” the organization said.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement Feb. 9 expressing concern about the police shooting Feb. 8 of two journalists as they covered a protest in the Champ de Mars neighborhood, calling for Moise’s resignation.
“Haitian authorities should thoroughly investigate the shootings of journalists Alvarez Destiné and Méus Jeanril, identify those responsible and hold them to account,” CPJ said.
One of the wounded reporters has undergone two operations for the injuries he suffered at the hands of police.
Haiti Secretary of State for Communications Eddy Jackson Alexis commented on Twitter: “I was stunned to learn that journalist @CheryHaiti was injured today during a protest in the capital. I invite @pnh_officiel to be more careful in its interventions and invite journalists to exercise caution while working.”
A United Nations report published in September 2020 said the uptick in violence against journalists covering protests was cause for concern. Among its recommendations for protecting media workers was “strengthening training for police and law enforcement on freedom of expression, and appropriate behavior in dealing with the media.”
Jacquelin Belizaire, Renan Toussaint in Port-au-Prince, Haiti contributed to this report.
Joon Seong Tan, 35, was arrested at Tullamarine Airport about 6.15 on Wednesday night, allegedly trying to flee the state.
The arrest comes ten days after Ms Zhang's disappearance as ongoing investigations continue by police from the Missing Persons Squad, who spent today scouring a creek in Melbourne's inner north-east as part of their search.
Tan was previously arrested by police on Sunday afternoon and was later released without charge after 24 hours of questioning.
He earlier told police he last saw Ms Zhang outside her Epping home on Winchester Avenue about 5.30pm on Monday February 1, when the 33-year-old mother said she was going for a walk.
Ms Zhang, who hasn't been seen since, was believed to be wearing a pink nightgown and possibly pink slippers.
She did not have any personal belongings with her and police said her mobile phone was missing.
The phone was last active in the street, with a public appeal urging anyone who potentially finds it to contact police.
Police have also urged residents from Ivanhoe West, Epping and Doncaster to check their CCTV footage from the afternoon Ms Zhang went missing.
Investigators also want to speak to anyone who witnessed "suspicious activity" near Darebin Creek Reserve, near Seddon Reserve in Ivanhoe West on February 1 and 2.
Mr Tan is expected to face Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Friday.
Researchers at the University of Oxford have found that AstraZeneca’s asthma treatment Pulmicort reduces the need for hospitalization in COVID-19 patients, sparking hope the medication could join a short list of drugs used to treat the virus.
Pulmicort is a budesonide administered by inhalation, commonly used in the long-term treatment of asthma. In the study, half of the 146 participants took 800 micrograms of the medication twice a day while the other half continued their usual care over a 28-day study period. The findings showed that for those receiving the Pulmicort treatment, the risk of requiring hospitalization reduced by 90%.
The study also found that inhaled budesonide given within seven days of the onset of symptoms reduced recovery time.
Despite it being a small study, the results provide hope at a time that countries are scrambling amid rises in cases triggered by mutations of the coronavirus. Mona Bafadhel of the university’s Nuffield Department of Medicine said she was, “heartened that a relatively safe, widely available and well studied medicine such as an inhaled steroid could have an impact on the pressures we are experiencing during the pandemic,” according to a statement shared by Bloomberg.
LONDON (Reuters) – British people should expect to receive repeated vaccinations against COVID-19 in future to keep pace with mutations of the virus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.
As vaccines are being rushed out across the world, researchers are considering tweaks and booster shots to make them more effective against new variants, some of which appear to spread more quickly.
Among those most concerning for scientists and public health experts are the so-called British, South African and Brazilian variants.
“I think we will have to get used to the idea of vaccinating and revaccinating in the autumn as we come to face these new variants,” Johnson told parliament.
Earlier this week Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Britain had agreed to buy 50 million new vaccine doses specifically for new COVID-19 variants.
The head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said on Tuesday it is not yet clear whether the world needs a new set of vaccines to fight different variants of the novel coronavirus but scientists are working on new ones so there is no reason for alarm.
The Oxford vaccine developed with British drugmaker AstraZeneca appears to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African variant of COVID-19, based on early data from a trial.
However, AstraZeneca said it thought its vaccine could still protect people against severe illness caused by the South African variant.
Britain has already injected over 12.6 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and is on track to meet a target to vaccinate everyone in the top most vulnerable groups by mid-February.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed 2.34 million people worldwide since it emerged in China in late 2019, according to a Reuters tally, with Britain among the very worst-hit.
Reporting by William James and Andy Bruce; editing by Guy Faulconbridge
Residents in the Auckland suburb of Penrose are being warned to keep doors and windows closed after a 5000-litre chemical leak. Auckland Council are investigating circumstances of the methyl methacrylate spill from storage at a…
President Biden announced sanctions targeting Myanmar’s military officials, their families and some businesses following a coup in that country that led to the detainment of democratically elected government officials.
Biden made his announcement at the White House, saying that he signed an executive order allowing for sanctions on military leaders who directed the coup, blacklisting their business interests and imposing restrictions on their family members. He did not name the officials in the announcement.
The president said he consulted closely with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and “allies and partners” around the world, and in particular the Indo-Pacific, in an effort to begin to build a coordinated international response to the coup
“A strong and unified message emerging from the United States has been essential, in our view, to encouraging other countries to join us and pressing for an immediate return to democracy,” the president said.
The move comes following Myanmar’s military instituting a state of emergency on Feb. 1, overthrowing the civilian-led government and arresting prominent politicians including Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.
The Biden administration quickly condemned the takeover and determined it a military coup shortly after, triggering sanctions and a review of U.S. assistance to the country.
The president said Wednesday he is further directing steps be taken to prevent military generals from having access to $1 billion in government funds held in the United States and will impose “strong export controls” and freeze assets to the government in Myanmar, which is also referred to as Burma.
The U.S. will maintain support for Myanmar’s health care system and civil society groups and “other areas that benefit the people of Burma directly,” Biden said.
“Today, I again call on the Burmese military to immediately release the democratic political leaders and activists that they now detain, including detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, the president,” Biden said.
His announcement Wednesday marks the first time the president has used punitive measures since taking office.
Biden further spoke out against any violence directed towards protesters in Myanmar demonstrating against the military coup, which have gathered momentum in recent days with thousands taking to the streets.
The United Nations has warned against police using “disproportionate force” to disperse protesters amid reports of wounded demonstrators from rubber bullets and water cannons.
“Violence against those asserting their democratic rights is unacceptable and we’re going to keep calling it out,” Biden said on Wednesday.
“The people of Burma are making their voices heard and the world is watching. We’ll be ready to impose additional measures, and we’ll continue to work with our international partners to urge other nations to join us in these efforts.”
Biden further said the U.S., in its return this week to the U.N. Human Rights Council as an observer state, would use its position “to strengthen the world’s commitment to human rights in Burma.”
The move by the president signals a return by the U.S. to foreign policy concerned with democracy and human rights, said Chris Ankersen, clinical associate professor at the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs.
As part of this, the U.S. had earlier joined a statement the Group of Seven denouncing the coup, and the president on Wednesday said the U.S. “helped bring together” the United Nations Security Council when it issued a joint statement last week calling for the democratically-elected government to be reinstated and the release of government officials.
Yet Ankersen cautioned that the impact of the president’s announced sanctions is likely limited.
“Senior military officers must have anticipated this,” he wrote in an email to The Hill. “China will be able to provide some financial relief to at least partially offset this.”
Top military officials in Myanmar, including General Min Aung Hlaing, who assumed leadership of the country with the military coup, were sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2019 for participating in gross human rights abuses against the minority Rohingya population and other ethnic groups.
Ankersen also expressed skepticism over the follow through of countries allied with the U.S. to join in the sanctions.
“Biden says the US will continue to urge other countries to follow suit. This indicates that the US has not yet been successful in gaining cooperation from others in imposing sanctions,” he said.
Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the president has the possibility to impose more broad based penalties on top of the targeted sanctions, but that the likelihood of that is low given the threats to the civilian population.
“They punish the whole population there, which is really suffering right now, not clear they are effective, [and] other countries would be reluctant to join in,” he wrote in an email to The Hill. “I think this type of targeted sanctions is what will be on the table no
Guardian (UK) Democrats revealed disturbing new recordings of the mob attack on the US Capitol last month as they presented their case on Wednesday in the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
House impeachment managers constructed a timeline which they said showed that the former president was “singularly responsible” for the deadly assault, which brought a violent mob within footsteps of the nation’s political leaders.
Senators, seated as jurors in the chamber that was the scene of the invasion on 6 January, watched silently as the security videos and police dispatches painted a fuller picture of the afternoon.
Five shocking videos from the Capitol attack shown at Trump’s impeachment trial
The dramatic scenes showed rioters rampaging through the halls of Congress, searching for the then-vice-president Mike Pence and the House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Members of far-right extremist groups were among the first to enter the Capitol. Some wore tactical gear, others were armed.
In previously unreleased security footage, Pence, who had been presiding over a session to certify Biden’s victory, and his family were seen being evacuated from a room near the Senate chamber, nearly 15 minutes after rioters breached the Capitol. Chants of “hang Mike Pence” reverberated through the marbled building, while outside other constructed a makeshift gallows. At one point, the mob came within 100ft of the room where Pence was sheltering, the managers said.
One graphic video showed police shooting through a broken window, killing Ashli Babbitt, as she attempted to enter the building. A number of senators were visibly upset by a video of police officer Daniel Hodges crushed in a doorway as he tried to prevent the rioters from breaching the Capitol.
The Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman was seen in another extraordinary video leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters, potentially saving his life. In another recording, senators are rushed from the building, narrowly missing the insurrections by just “58 steps”.
Romney, one of Trump’s most frequent Republican critics, told reporters he had no idea he has been so close to danger: “It tears at your heart and brings tears to your eyes. That was overwhelmingly distressing and emotional.”
In another security video, Pelosi’s staffers rushed into her office and barricaded themselves in a room, moments before the rioters arrive. The staffers could hear them calling menacingly for the speaker as they marauded through her office. One of the men who posed for a photo of himself with his boots atop Pelosi’s desk was carrying a stun gun that could have caused serious harm if it had been used, the managers said.
“President Trump put a target on their backs,” Stacey Plaskett, an impeachment manager and a delegate of the Virgin Islands, said. “And his mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down.”
The House Democrats – called impeachment managers during the trial – methodically traced Trump’s months-long campaign to overturn his election defeat to argue that the former president was not an “innocent bystander” swept up in the mayhem of 6 January, but the “inciter in chief”.
The impeachment managers used their first full day of arguments to make the case that the Capitol invasion was not a random act of chaos, but one “assembled, inflamed and incited” by Trump over the course of several months.
In previously unseen security footage, they argued, Trump violated his presidential oath of office by not acting to stop the violence, claiming that he instead watched with “glee” as his supporters stormed the seat of American government. Five people died.
“To us it may have felt like chaos and madness, but there was method to the madness that day,” said congressman Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager.
Eugene Goodman, a Capitol police officer, was seen rushing Senator Mitt Romney to safety in a dramatic video. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/AFP/Getty Images
Managers weaved their reconstruction of the afternoon with chilling dispatches from the Metropolitan police department. In one unreleased audio recording, an officer frantically calls for assistance after insurrectionists charged past the barricades toward the Capitol.
At 13.49, the responding officer declared the violence to be a riot. Then later, in another exchange, an officer shouts repeatedly: “We lost the line. All MPD pull back.”
The presentation appealed to the senators’ still-raw emotions from the day. During a break, several members said they were shaken and shocked anew by the records. Even so, it remains extremely unlikely that the managers will persuade 17 Republican senators to join all Democrats in finding Trump guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. If convicted, the Senate could vote to bar Trump from ever again holding elected office.
Trump impeachment: police bodycam footage shows Capitol attack – video
Congressman Joe Neguse, another impeachment manager, dissected Trump’s speech during a 6 January rally, making the case that Trump intended to rile up supporters there to attack the Capitol as electoral votes were being counted and for his supporters to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s loss.
He noted Trump publicly invited supporters to Washington on that specific day and planned the rally at the exact time Congress was meeting to count electoral votes. When Trump spoke, Neguse said, he encouraged them to “fight” – language that unmistakably signaled to them to attack.
“Those words were carefully chosen. They had a specific meaning to that crowd,” Neguse said. “He didn’t just tell them to fight like hell. He told them how, where and when. He made sure they had advance notice.”
Democrats pointed to months of false statements Trump made about the election being stolen leading up to 6 January. Those lies, they said, represented a deliberate effort to sow distrust of the election that exploded in the attack on the Capitol. They played clips of television interviews and speeches in which Trump repeatedly refused to commit to accepting a peaceful transition of power.
“He built this mob over many months with repeated messaging until they believed that they had been robbed of their votesaid congressman Eric Swalwell of California, another impeachment manager. The impeachment managers played video of Trump claiming as early as May that the only way he would lose the 2020 election was if it was stolen.
When it was clear Trump had lost the election, his team turned to the courts. All but one of the 62 legal challenges were defeated or dismissed. Trump then ramped up his pressure on election officials to overturn the election results, publicly berating them when they refused. Senators heard audio of Trump’s conversation with the Georgia secretary of state, during which he implored him to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in the state.
“Senators, we must not become numb to this,” said Pennsylvania congresswoman Madeleine Dean, an impeachment manger. “Trump did this in state after state so often, so loudly and so publicly.”
The US Capitol is seen through high levels of security as Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial begins. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
Perhaps worst of all, the managers said, was that Trump did nothing to discourage the insurrectionists who were causing violence and destruction in his name. They highlighted pleas from Republicans and former White House officials for Trump to condemn the violence and encourage his supporters to go home.
“The truth is, the facts are, on January 6, Donald Trump did not once condemn this attack,” said the Rhode Island congressman David Cicilline, another manager. “He did not once condemn the attackers.”
Trump was impeached while still in office by the US House of Representatives on one charge of “incitement of insurrection”. His lawyers have argued that his rhetoric constituted political speech, which is protected under the first amendment.
Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, rebutted the defense on Wednesday, arguing that while an ordinary citizen’s anti-government speech is protected by the first amendment, Trump had an obligation to protect the nation as its president.
Over the course of their eight-hour presentation on Wednesday, the managers also spoke personally and poignantly about the attack, reliving their own experiences that day. Visibly shaken, Dean recalled hearing a “terrifying banging on the House chamber doors”, while Swalwell, unsure of whether he would survive the afternoon, texted his wife: “I love you and the babies.”
Neguse, the son of immigrants from Eritrea, told his father that the proudest moment of his two years in Congress was returning to the House floor after the violence to finish the work of certifying the election.
Concluding their arguments for the day, impeachment manager Joaquin Castro, a congressman from Texas, revisited that moment on the evening of 6 January when he and his colleagues, still shaken from the violence, came back to the Capitol to “ensure that the will of the American people finally prevailed”.
“President Trump, too, took an oath as president,” he said. “He swore on a Bible to preserve, protect, and defend. And who among us can honestly say they believe that he upheld that oath? And who among us will let utter dereliction of duty stand?”
Wearing a cloth mask over a medical procedure mask can significantly decrease the spread of COVID-19, according to a new study the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released Wednesday.
The agency updated its guidance to note that double masking or wearing a tightly fitted surgical mask are two of the best ways to boost protection against exposure.
CDC researchers experimenting in a lab found that the better the fit of the mask, the better the protection it provides.
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“The effectiveness of cloth and medical procedure masks can be improved by ensuring that they are well-fitted to the contours of the face to prevent leakage of air around the masks’ edges,” the agency said.
Double masking or knotting the ear loops of a surgical mask and tucking in the sides close to the face can reduce exposure to infectious aerosols by 95 percent, the CDC found.
The agency also said that if a medical procedure mask is worn alone, using a “mask fitter” or wearing a sleeve made of sheer nylon hosiery over either a cloth or medical procedure mask also significantly improved the wearer’s protection.
In general, any modifications to improve fit might result in equivalent improvements, regardless of the masks’ baseline effectiveness, the CDC said.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the new findings do not change the agency’s overall mask guidance.
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“I want to be clear that these new scientific data released today do not change the specific recommendations about who should wear a mask or when they should wear one, but they do provide new information on why wearing a well-fitting mask is so important to protect you and others,” Walensky said on a call with reporters.
“We continue to recommend that masks should have two or more layers, completely cover your nose and mouth and fit snugly against your nose and the size of your face,” Walensky added.
The agency warned to not use the study to make broad assumptions about the effectiveness of surgical masks or cloth masks.
The experiments were conducted in a lab setting, with just one type of medical procedure mask and one type of cloth mask, and the CDC cautioned they should not be interpreted as being representative of the effectiveness of these masks when worn in real-world settings.
The recommendations come three weeks into President Biden‘s term, and signal a clear effort to move past the mixed messages from the Trump administration, as deaths from COVID-19 approach 500,000.
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While the CDC previously recommended people wear masks, former President Trump mocked those who did, and helped contribute to the politicization of a significant COVID-19 mitigation measure.
Experts, including the country’s top infectious diseases doctor Anthony Fauci, have been recommending double masking in recent days, especially as a way to guard against more contagious variants of the virus that are rapidly spreading.
Biden has urged all Americans to wear masks and signed executive orders requiring their use on federal property and on planes, trains and buses.
