Weekly COVID news at a glance

1   Extra financial support to Victorian businesses

Victorian small and medium businesses will receive extra financial support to recover from the recent lockdown. A new jointly funded package from the Federal and Victorian Governments will provide $400 million to eligible businesses that are affected. There will be automatic payments for sole traders and further hardship funds available for those who don’t qualify for existing programs. 

The package has five key elements including the COVID-19 Disaster Payments, the Business Costs Assistance Program, the Licenced Hospitality Venue Fund, the Alpine Business Support Program and the Small Business COVID Hardship Fund. The Commonwealth Disaster payment will cover COVID hotspots while the Victorian Government will assume responsibility for those in other areas. 

2   Less restrictions for fully vaccinated 

Special rules and less restrictions for those who are fully vaccinated have been raised in the Federal Government’s national COVID-19 exit plan. Treating the fully vaccinated differently to the non-vaccinated may encourage more people to get vaccinated. 

Proof of vaccination would function with a COVID-19 vaccination passport, allowing more freedom of movement in the community especially during lockdowns and domestic interstate travel. The passport idea is also being developed as a way to help manage international travel and hotel quarantine.  

A fully vaccinated individual is less likely to transmit, be hospitalised or die from COVID-19 and is therefore less of a public health risk than someone not vaccinated. During a public health emergency or crisis, the Australian government is legally able to place restrictions upon people’s freedoms to protect public health. 

The rules would have to account for those who cannot be vaccinated due to particular medical conditions and be lifted if there is no public health crisis. 

3   More Pfizer arrived in Victoria

Victoria will open thousands more appointments for people to receive the Pfizer vaccine, but health authorities are warning demand for vaccinations will continue to outstrip supply.

This comes ahead of the arrival of more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Australia. 14-thousand additional appointments per week will be made available at Victoria’s state-run vaccine centres.

The Deputy Secretary for the COVID Response at the Department of Health, Naomi Bromley, said there would be about 60-thousand more appointment slots available from August 9 to September 5.

4   First drive-through vaccination hub

Australia’s first drive-through COVID vaccination hub opened on Monday at a former Bunnings warehouse in Melbourne. Approximately 10 cars will be processed at a time and the site will initially have capacity to administer ten-thousand vaccines a week. Additionally, several of Victoria’s state-run vaccination clinics will begin to offer the AstraZeneca vaccine to those aged 18 to 39-year-olds. 

In addition, children aged 12-15 years, with underlying health conditions or of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, will now be allowed to receive Pfizer doses. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed that anyone within that age group, willing to provide informed consent, would be able to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.

5   Rising visibility of interpreters

DeafACT president Jacob Clarke says the increased visibility of interpreters during the pandemic has led to a surge in people wanting to learn to sign. Clarke, who teaches sign language, says Australian has seen a rise in people wanting to learn due to the increased visibility of interpreters at press conferences and other health briefings. 

Australian has had to adapt with new language and terminology emerging in the pandemic. During initial press conferences addressing the pandemic, interpreters spelt out COVID but soon adopted signing that had been developed in the deaf community overseas.

6   Delta is more severe in effect

Early data from both local and international research is indicating that the Delta strain of COVID-19 is more severe in its effect as well as being harder to contain, according to health experts. The new data emerging from the current outbreak in New South Wales is indicating that the Delta strain is putting more people in hospital in a serious condition.

The data from NSW is backed up by early studies out of Canada, Scotland and Singapore which all show the Delta strain to be associated with a higher risk of hospitalisation. Dr Greg Kelly, a Sydney-based intensive care specialist, said it was clear with the Delta strain that the previous practices which were effective are no longer working, but that hospitals are better prepared than they were at the beginning of the pandemic.