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A Melbourne man who has COVID-19 after attending the cricket Test at the MCG and Boxing Day sales at Victoria's biggest shopping centre has sparked an emergency as authorities race to discover who he caught the virus from.

The mystery case was the only one outside of hotel quarantine in Victoria on Wednesday, and has prompted a scramble to identify its source for fear it could be linked to many others yet to be diagnosed.

The man, aged in his 30s, attended the second day of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG on December 27, where up to 30,000 spectators were at the ground.

He also was busy on a spree at Chadstone Shopping Centre on Boxing Day before he was ill.

https://twitter.com/VicGovDHHS/status/1346602260877471744

The man and his close contacts are now isolating, and whilst it's not believed he was infectious whilst at the cricket or while shopping, the big concern is the source of the virus.

"We are trying to identify, a needle in a haystack exercise, of who might be positive," COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said.

Victoria's active cases have risen to 41 after more than 37,000 tests in the 24 hours to yesterday.

Alert message sent to thousands

The man developed symptoms on December 30 and the health department was notified of his positive test result on January 5, Acting Premier Jacinta Allan said yesterday.

"Contact tracing that has gone on throughout the night has revealed he stayed home since 31 December and got tested."

"We're encouraging anyone who was at the cricket and who was seated in the Great Southern Stand, Zone 5, between 12.30pm and 3.30pm to go and get tested and isolate until they receive a result," Ms Allan said.

"A COVID-safe plan was in place at the MCG for this cricket event and excellent ticketing allocation system was put in place by the MCG."

Anyone who was seated within the Zone 5 bubble will receive a text message in the next couple of hours, advising them of the confirmed case and requesting they get tested.

Officials believe 2400 people were in Zone 5 at the MCG on December 27.

The man attended Chadstone Shopping Centre from 6am to 2pm on Boxing Day.

A total of 10 stores have been listed on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) website as potential acquisition sites, including Culture Kings, Huffer, JD Sports, Jay Jays, H&M, Uniqlo, Myer, Superdry, Footlocker and Dumplings Plus.

https://twitter.com/VicGovDHHS/status/1346600759857582082

Mr Weimar said health authorities have been tracking the man's phone movements around Chadstone.

"We're particularly interested in those who went to those stores on Boxing Day and who did not feel well — please come forward to get tested," he said.

"We will be identifying the time zones that the individual was in these stores.

"Again, we would encourage people to check in again during the course of the day."

Anyone who attended the locations during the times identified must get tested and self-quarantine until they receive a negative result, the DHHS website states.

Additional testing sites will be set up to cater to the influx of people expected to come forward, including at the MCG.

Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Allen Cheng said it is possible there may be a second cluster in the state, following news of the mystery infection.

"His household contacts have been spoken to, as well as visitors to his house and they'll be put into quarantine for the 14 days and tested," Dr Cheng said.

"The upstream contacts are the people that we're most concerned about. These are the people he has been in contact with in the 14 days prior to the symptoms starting."

The case is being retested and genomics are being undertaken on the initial sample. 

Thousands still stranded in NSW

The Victorian Government has processed and granted 295 exemptions for Victorians stuck in NSW to cross the border and return home.

Mr Weimar said staff in the exemptions team have been boosted to about 40 people to enable the process to move quicker.

More than 3000 requests to re-enter Victoria by January 31 are yet to be processed.

"I'm confident we're getting on top of the urgent critical cases now," he said.

"There'll be difficult decisions to be made, let's not shirk that, but we'll prioritise the urgent cases and get to those others."

Virus exposure sites grow

Shoppers who visited a South Melbourne Nike store while a person with COVID-19 shopped inside are also on high alert.

Nike on Buckhurst Street in South Melbourne has been listed as an exposure site after a positive case shopped in store on December 30, between 12pm-12.45pm.

The DHHS has issued advice, directing anyone who visited the store between the times indicated to get tested and quarantine for 14 days from the date of exposure.

While anyone who visited Culture Kings Melbourne on Russell Street between 1pm-1.30pm on December 30 must monitor for symptoms.

Advice has also been updated for diners who attended Nandos Elizabeth Street in Melbourne on January 1 between 2am-2.30am, with all patrons ordered to quarantine and get tested.

Other risk locations recently added include Sri Lankan restaurant Tamarind 8 in Narre Warren, where a case picked up take away on December 30 between 6.30pm-7pm.

Mr Weimar yesterday said wait times at test sites had improved, urging people to come forward for testing.

READ MORE: Why Australia is not rushing to approve a COVID-19 vaccine

"It's important if there's an exposure site you have been at in those time windows, if you have any concerns you may have overlapped with a positive case, we would ask you to go and get tested and to isolate and contact us so we can work with you and support you to do the right thing and to ensure we can contain the spread of this outbreak quickly," Mr Weimar said.

The Tasmanian Government has classed the 18 locations in Victoria which are listed on the DHHS website as high-risk exposure sites as hot spots.

Travellers who have been in the areas during the specified dates and times have been locked out of the state, and must apply for an exemption if they wish to enter.

The Black Rock outbreak at the centre of Victoria's coronavirus flare-up spans across 14 households and contains 27 active cases, with no new cases linked to the cluster today.

A US politician whose success in the Georgia senate run-offs would deliver a huge victory for President-elect Joe Biden is the son of an Australian woman.

The run-off elections are coming down to a knife's edge, and Democrat nominee Jon Ossoff must win against Republican David Perdue for Biden to claim the balance of power in the Senate, a huge boon for the next president ahead of his inauguration later this month.

If Mr Ossoff wins, the 33-year-old will be the youngest person elected to the US Senate in 40 years — and he'll also hold the title of one of the closest connections to Australia of any member of Congress in American history.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Mr Ossoff's mother, Heather Fenton, was born and raised in Australia and called Sydney home until she immigrated to the US as a 23-year-old.

Ms Fenton settled in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband Richard Ossoff, a Harvard graduate, and raised their only child there, the newspaper says.

And while the Democratic candidate grew up in the US, and went on to be American politician, documentary film producer, and investigative journalist, his Aussie roots still show.

Mr Ossoff has travelled to Australia several times, held an Australian citizenship (now lapsed) and even refers to Ms Fenton as "mum" rather than the US version of "mom", the SMH says.

https://twitter.com/ossoff/status/1259554730063396865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Mr Ossoff even has Australian politicians cheering him on, a sense of comradery between fellow Aussies.

"Jon Ossoff is just about to win the last Georgia Senate seat, flipping the US Senate from Republican to Democrat," Sydney's Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne said on Twitter.

"What a great Australian export.

"A new and improved #AussieJon."

https://twitter.com/MayorDarcy/status/1346729419235201024?s=20

READ MORE: Confrontation between poll workers and protesters delays knife-edge run-off election results

Mr Ossoff was last night trailing the count in the run-off election, but is widely expected to win thanks to outstanding ballots in heavily Democratic areas surrounding Atlanta.

A British judge has denied bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been jailed in Britain since 2019 as he fights extradition to the United States.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ordered Assange to remain in prison while the courts consider an appeal by US authorities against a decision not to extradite him.

On Monday, the judge rejected an American request to send Assange to the US to face espionage charges over WikiLeaks' publication of secret military documents a decade ago.

https://twitter.com/benavery9/status/1346780979327873026?s=20

She denied extradition on health grounds, saying the 49-year-old Australian was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions.

The judge said on Wednesday that Assange "has an incentive to abscond" and there is a good chance he would fail to return to court if freed.

The ruling means Assange must remain in London's high-security Belmarsh Prison where he has been held since April 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle seven years earlier.

https://twitter.com/benavery9/status/1346741952914579458?s=20

Lawyers for the US government have appealed the decision not to extradite Assange, and the case will be heard by Britain's Hugh Court at an unspecified date.

Clair Dobbin, a British lawyer acting for the US, said Assange had shown he would go "to almost any length" to avoid extradition, and it was likely he would flee if granted bail.

She noted that Assange had spent seven years inside Ecuadorian Embassy in London after seeking refuge there from a Swedish extradition request in 2012

Ms Dobbin said Assange had the "resources, abilities and sheer wherewithal" to evade justice once again, and noted that Mexico has said it will offer him asylum.

But Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said the judge's decision to refuse extradition "massively reduces" any motivation to abscond.

"Mr Assange has every reason to stay in this jurisdiction where he has the protection of the rule of law and this court's decision," he said.

Mr Fitzgerald also said Assange would be safer at home with his partner Stella Moris and two young sons — fathered while he was in the embassy — than in prison, where there is "a very grave crisis of COVID."

But the judge ruled that Assange still had a strong motive to flee.

"As far as Mr Assange is concerned this case has not yet been won," she said. "Mr. Assange still has an incentive to abscond from these as yet unresolved proceedings."

US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

US prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that were later published by WikiLeaks.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The judge rejected that argument in her extradition ruling, saying Assange's actions, if proven, would amount to offences "that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech."

She also said the US judicial system would give him a fair trial.

Assange's legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women.

In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of UK and Swedish authorities — but also effectively was a prisoner in the tiny diplomatic mission.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019.

British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but Assange has remained in prison throughout his extradition hearing.

A talented young basketball player charged with assaulting police has claimed he is the victim of police brutality after an incident in Adelaide.

Akol Deng, 22, had trained with the Adelaide 36ers and played college basketball in the US.

He was out with a friend on Hindley Street early on Monday morning when he was stopped by police and accused of committing a crime.

Capsicum spray was ultimately deployed, and Mr Deng claimed he panicked and ran before being tackled to the ground.

He said he was left bloodied and bruised with a broken tooth.

The Sudanese immigrant said he had not been drinking and alleged he was targeted because of his race.

He spent 12 hours in custody.

Mr Deng plans to fight the police assault charge when he returns to court in March.

The head of the World Health Organisation said today that he is "disappointed" Chinese officials haven't finalised the permissions to allow a team of experts into China to examine the origins of COVID-19.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a rare critique of Beijing, said members of the international scientific team began departing from their home countries over the last 24 hours as part of an arrangement between WHO and the Chinese government.

"Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalised the necessary permissions for the team's arrival in China," Gen. Tedros said during a news conference in Geneva.

READ MORE: City at centre of China's virus outbreak gradually revives

"I'm very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute, but had been in contact with senior Chinese officials," he said.

Gen. Tedros said he "made it clear" that the mission was a priority for the UN health agency, and that he was "assured that China is speeding up the internal procedures for the earliest possible deployment."

"We are eager to get the mission underway as soon as possible," he said.

The experts drawn from around the world are expected to visit the city of Wuhan, which is suspected as the place that the coronavirus first emerged over a year ago.

Dr Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief, said the deployment had been expected to start today but that the needed approvals had not yet been granted, including for visa clearances.

The Chinese government has been strictly controlling all research at home into the origins of the virus, an Associated Press investigation found, and state-owned media have played up reports that suggest the virus could have originated elsewhere.

READ MORE: 'It's an apocalyptic wasteland'

UN HEALTH CHIEF: World can start dreaming of pandemic's end

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said recently that "more and more research suggests that the pandemic was likely to have been caused by separate outbreaks in multiple places in the world."

The UN health agency came in for searing criticism from President Donald Trump and other US officials over its alleged deference to and excessive praise of China's handling of the initial outbreak.

Dr Ryan said Gen. Tedros had "taken immediate action" and spoken with unspecified senior Chinese officials, and "has fully impressed upon them the absolute critical nature of this."

"We hope that this is just a logistical and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved very quickly," Dr Ryan added.

The WHO chief met with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the pandemic was emerging early last year.

An Auckland mother has recounted the terrifying moment her children were sent flying after being hit by a cyclist. The two boys, aged 5 and 9, were on a pedestrian crossing in Kohimarama on Tuesday when a cyclist struck them down,…

The former partner of a Melbourne mother has been charged with murder almost 14 years after the singer was allegedly strangled in her home.

Paul Charlton was arrested at his Casterton home, in Victoria's south-west, this morning and has since been charged with one count of murder over the death of his ex-girlfriend Joanne Howell.

Ms Howell's sister Lisa Hennessy said she and her family were going through a range of emotions today.

"As a family we've come together even stronger and we're going to see this through for Jo … happy and sad, mixed emotions," Ms Hennessy said.

Ms Howell was allegedly strangled and bashed to death before she died in her Poath Road apartment in Hughesdale on April 21, 2007.

The Melbourne mother was a well-known singer who performed on the ABC music show Countdown in the 1970s.

Ms Hennessy said she and her family never gave up looking for 'Jo's Justice' and over the years had never stopped thinking about their sister.

"We talk about it on any birthday, Christmas, on special occasions, Jo's birthday, the day it happened.

"We get together and talk about it as a family, so we have been waiting for that phone call to happen for so long that it's surreal."

Ms Howell's sister thanked police for their efforts over the years and hope they can "finally get the answers we need."

"We are so grateful as a family."

Ms Hennessy also hopes her sister's death was an opportunity to shine a light on violence against women.

Mr Charlton's arrest comes after police appealed for further information relating to the 51-year-old's cold case killing last month.

He faced the Hamilton Magistrates' Court this afternoon and has been remanded in custody until his next court date in June.

The prosecutor told the court police would need additional time to prepare the brief of evidence while telephone intercepts were transcribed.

At the time of Ms Howell's death, Mr Charlton was taken into custody and interviewed, but released without charge and has always denied being involved in her death.

Last month during the public appeal for additional information, head of the homicide squad Detective Inspector Tim Day said Ms Howell's death was violent and tragic.

"This was an incredibly brutal and tragic end to Joanne's life," he said.

Police believe Ms Howell died within a half hour window of 9pm on April 21 after a phone call about 8.30pm.

Neighbours have said they heard a loud noise coming from her home between 9pm and 9.30pm.

Anyone with information that could assist investigators is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.crimestoppersvic.com.au

NSW Health has confirmed COVID-19 testing is free after reports several people had been charged for the service at some private clinics in Sydney.

People who showed up to the clinics without a Medicare card were reportedly charged a fee.

NSW Health today said the service does not cost anything and those people will be reimbursed for what they paid.

"While you can provide your Medicare card at the clinic you attend for testing, you do not need a Medicare card to be tested and you will not be charged," NSW Health said in a statement.

NSW Health also confirmed they will continue to waive fees for suspected cases of COVID-19 in overseas visitors who are ineligible for Medicare and present to NSW hospitals for testing.

There are more than 350 testing sites available across NSW with many open seven days a week.

There is no charge for having a test done at any of these sites if you don't have your Medicare card with you.

READ MORE: Pandemic haunts new year as virus growth outpaces vaccines

https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1346643824328601602?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

NSW Health said the only time there will ever be a charge for a COVID-19 test is "for the purposes of travel to other jurisdictions that require a negative test prior to travel".

A Lotto player in Te Aroha has scooped up a $4.5 million windfall in tonight’s Powerball draw. The winning ticket was sold at Te Aroha Supermarket and is made up of $4 million from Powerball First Division and $500,000 from Lotto…