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Meanwhile, you can catch up with all our coronavirus coverage here.
15:14
Australia could fully vaccinate 80% of its adult population by December under a “vision” outlined by Operation Covid Shield, with the federal government calling for an unprecedented level of collaboration across the country to accelerate the rollout.
An update to the national vaccine campaign program being spearheaded by Lt Gen John Frewen, released on Tuesday, states that 80% of the eligible population could “potentially” have received both doses of a vaccine by December, with a 70% vaccination rate achieved by November.
The federal government has previously suggested that once 80% of those aged 16 and over are vaccinated Australia can move to a “consolidation” phase of the national pandemic exit plan that was endorsed by national cabinet on Friday.
That third phase would exempt vaccinated residents from domestic restrictions, remove caps on returning vaccinated Australians and lift restrictions on outbound travel. Leaders would only ever pursue “highly targeted lockdowns”.
Tuesday’s updated Operation Covid Shield document flags a rapid increase in the delivery and distribution of vaccines with drive-through vaccination clinics operating “at scale in most jurisdictions” by mid-October. Workplace vaccination and retail hubs would also be operating by the end of the year with pilot programs to begin by October.
The plan flags that school vaccination programs could be underway by early December “pending decision about whether to open school programs”.
“This plan flags not only the requirement to accelerate the nation’s vaccine rollout, but also highlights the need for an unprecedented level of collaboration across boundaries, using all available resources of governments at every level, industry partners and our diverse communities to ensure our collective health and prosperity,” the document states.
It says this “vision will have been realised” when the vaccination targets set out in the national transition plan have been achieved.
Read the full story here:
14:14
Nicola Sturgeon has suggested that new advice from the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the coming days will recommend opening up the vaccine programme to 16- and 17-year-olds across the UK.
Making a statement to the Scottish parliament on Tuesday afternoon, Sturgeon told MSPs that she was “hoping” to get the updated advice from the JCVI “over the next day or so”.
Previously the committee concluded that the health benefits of vaccinating the over-12s would be “small”.
During the subsequent question-and-answer session with MSPs, Sturgeon explained:
The JCVI are our advisory body so they have to give us the advice they think is right and I respect that. I am hoping it will recommend going further on the vaccination of young people.
I am particularly concerned if possible to get vaccinations to 16- and 17-year-olds, which is obviously important for those who will be, for example, going to college and university and mingling with older young people who are vaccinated.
But we’ll see what that advice brings and we stand ready to implement that as quickly as possible.
She later said she was hoping and “veering towards expecting” the committee to recommend further vaccination of people in the 12- to 18-year-olds age group, and in particular “hopeful that we will see some updated recommendations in relation, as a priority as a first part of this, for 16- and 17-year-olds”.
The committee has previously stopped short of offering the vaccine to all teenagers.
Children over 12 with certain health conditions and those who live with vulnerable people were added to the vaccine programme last month, but the JCVI said it could identify little benefit in doing so for all 12- to 17-year-olds, although other countries including the US and Canada have taken the step.
Sturgeon recently called for the committee to keep this under review, saying it was “extremely important that this is not ruled out here”.
Read more here:
13:55
The most disadvantaged local government areas in greater Sydney have had almost twice as many Covid cases as the rest of the city during the current outbreak, according to a Guardian Australia analysis.
Experts say a multitude of cultural, environmental and economic factors could explain these differences. The impact of the pandemic is similar to health outcomes in general, with more disadvantaged areas suffering higher rates of mortality from all causes.
These areas not only contain large numbers of essential workers, an analysis of census data also shows a large number of workers in jobs that involve a lot of contact with other people, such as nursing, retail and childcare.
13:48
Sky News Australia has purged several videos promoting unproven Covid-19 treatments from its YouTube page ahead of the scheduled lifting of its suspension from the platform.
Sky News was on Thursday banned for a week from uploading any new content to YouTube or live streaming after violating the social media site’s medical misinformation policies.
In a statement on the decision, YouTube said “specifically, we don’t allow content that denies the existence of Covid-19 or that encourages people to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus”.
Sky News and YouTube have not said which videos led to the ban, but Guardian Australia found that at least six videos from Alan Jones and the Outsiders program discussing hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin had been deleted by YouTube for violating community guidelines.