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New online safety laws have come into force in Australia from today, providing extra protections for people targeted on the internet.

The Online Safety Act, which has been in development for the past year, will expand online protections in a number of areas.

The new Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme will allow eSafety to fine or otherwise penalise people who post serious online abuse targeting adults.

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The service provider could also be punished if they fail to remove it.

"Under the law, to reach the threshold the abuse must be both 'intended to cause serious harm', and 'menacing, harassing or offensive in all the circumstances'," eSafety said in a release.

"Serious harm could include material which sets out realistic threats, places people in real danger, is excessively malicious or is unrelenting.

"If a matter does not meet the threshold, we will still be able to offer support, information and advice."

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The Cyberbullying Scheme for Australian children has also been bolstered, with eSafety now allowed to order service providers to remove offending content not just from social media sites, but also from online services where a lot of children spend their time, including online game chats, websites, and direct messaging platforms.

The time for providers to take down revenge porn or other "intimate images" has now been halved.

Web services will now have just 24 hours to take action after being notified by eSafety.

Providers that fail to do so repeatedly can now also be named and shamed by the commission.

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Web providers can also be ordered to block access to anything that "promotes, incites, instructs in or depicts abhorrent violent conduct, such as rape, torture, murder, attempted murder and terrorist acts".

This would mean horrific attacks like the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre, which saw video stream on Facebook, could be blocked more quickly.

Providers who don't comply with orders to take down illegal or restricted content could be penalised up to $111,000 for individuals and $555,000 for corporations.

The eSafety commission, as a "last resort", can also now apply for a court order to block a provider or social media service that poses a "serious threat" to public safety.

The Online Safety Act has now come into force and makes Australia's existing laws for online safety more expansive and much stronger," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

"These new laws cement eSafety's role as a world leader in online safety. They place Australia at the international forefront in the fight against online abuse and harm – providing additional protections for Australians in the fight against online harms through our approach of prevention, protection, and proactive change in the online space."

People can visit the eSafety website to learn more or file a report.

There are 24 new community cases of Covid-19 as the highly-infectious Omicron is confirmed in the community, the Ministry of Health says.As announced this morning, the nine Covid-19 cases reported yesterday in the Nelson/Tasman…

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has revealed the state's back-to-school plan with mass mask and RAT delivery across the state.

Term starts on January 28 in Victoria, with students back on January 31.

"Day one, term one is very important, we want kids back in the classrooms, we want kids back at school," Mr Andrews said today.

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A total of 14 million RATs are being delivered to schools and early childhood centres, including 6.6 million for the first week back.

"We will be recommending to primary and secondary school students and staff, and early childhood education and care staff, to test at home twice weekly," Deputy Premier James Merlino said.

"But because they are more medically vulnerable, we recommend students and staff at specialist schools do the at-home test five times a week and we will be providing the kits."

Staff eligible for a booster shot must receive their third dose by February 25, while those not yet eligible must get the booster within three months and two weeks of receiving their second dose.

Victoria will also deliver 51,000 air purifiers to schools to be placed in high-risk settings, such as music rooms, staff rooms, indoor canteens, sick bays, and poorly-ventilated rooms.

Grants for shade sail construction are also being made available, with outdoor learning encouraged.

"I can also announce we are delivering 30 million surgical masks to schools in the first four weeks of term, with 5.8 million surgical masks delivered in the first week," Mr Merlino said.

"That includes N95 masks, children-sized surgical masks, as well as adult-sized surgical masks.

"They will be recommended and available at the school."

Students in Year Three and above will be required to wear a mask at school, as will all staff.

As in NSW, schools will no longer automatically shut down after a positive COVID-19 case is detected.

Parents will be required to let the school know if their child has COVID-19, and the school will inform other parents, who will be asked to monitor their children for symptoms.

Students forced to isolate will be able to access provisions for remote learning.

Extra-curricular activities will also resume across the state.

"In terms of school camps, excursions, sport competitions, music and the arts, all of those things can proceed," Mr Merlino said.

"There will obviously be, at all times, a risk assessment at the school level."

Victoria's COVID-19 cases have peaked, CHO says

Victoria has likely reached its peak of daily COVID-19 numbers, the state Chief Health Officer has theorised.

Posting on Twitter in response to news that Victoria recorded 14 new deaths and 13,091 new cases, Professor Brett Sutton said there were positive signs in the data.

"Booster blitz going great guns. Peak in cases very likely behind us," Professor Sutton wrote.

"ICU cases and deaths haven't peaked, but will hopefully stabilise soon."

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https://twitter.com/VictorianCHO/status/1485014468195418112

The state is currently managing 191,058 active case of the virus, 1002 of whom are in hospital.

A total of 44 Victorians are currently on ventilators as a result of the virus.

Victoria's two-dose vaccine rate for residents aged over 12 is currently sitting at 93 per cent, while its three-dose rate for residents aged over 18 is currently at 31 per cent.

Almost 5.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered at state-run sites since the pandemic begun.

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Elderly hardest-hit by Omicron, but new data shows boosters critical

New data in Victoria has underscored the effectiveness of booster shots in preventing COVID-19 hospitalisations.

Although the Omicron variant has been widely regarded as a strain primarily affecting more mobile, younger Australians, the numbers in Victoria show the elderly are the hardest-hit, The Age has reported.

The median age for COVID-19 hospitalisations in Victoria is 62 in Melbourne and 67 in regional communities.

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That is two decades older than what was seen during the Delta outbreak.

However, the data also shows that people who have received their booster shot are vastly less likely to need hospitalisation.

Meanwhile, some doctors in the state are calling for a reintroduction of elective surgery, after the statewide "code brown" saw such operations postponed.

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"Those calls are monitored by the experts every day, and as soon as we can under the code brown arrangement, feel that it is safe and that we have significant capacity to resume services, that is exactly what we will do," Mr Andrews said.

Victoria recorded 16,016 new COVID-19 cases and 20 deaths yesterday.

State COVID-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar said the hospitalisations were beginning to stabilise.

"Encouraging to see a little bit of stabilisation over the last few days in that hospitalisation number," he said.

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"Case numbers look like they're reasonably stabilising," he said.

Mr Weimar said the seven-day average of cases is sitting just under 21,000.

He also said the test positivity rate is beginning to drop "ever so slightly".

Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles says New Zealand’s shift to red isn’t going far enough to meet the threat that is Omicron – and her family won’t be entering indoor bars and restaurants while there’s community transmission. Under…

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