Coronavirus Australia news: AMA warns against starting NRL season too soon – as it happened

We’re closing our live coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia for the day. Thanks from me Graham Readfearn, and Melissa Davey who took you through most of the day’s developments.

The Guardian’s global live coverage continues.

Here’s what happened in Australia today.

• Only three states recorded new cases on Saturday. Queensland had one, New South Wales five and Victoria seven. There were no new deaths announced.
• A coronavirus cluster emerged at an unnamed Melbourne meat processing facility, with eight workers testing positive.
• Some states started to lift restrictions. Queenslanders were allowed non-essential travel up to 50km from their homes for recreation, but had to stick to social distancing rules.
• The National Rugby League’s hopes for a restart by 28 May were boosted when the New Zealand Warriors were told they could fly into the Tamworth tomorrow.
• Australia’s peak medical body, the AMA, urged the NRL and other sporting codes to be cautious as they planned their returns.
• Australia’s US ambassador, Arthur Sinodinos, said calls for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus were not about retribution or revenge against China, but “getting the facts”.

Thanks for being with us. As South Australia launches a new TV campaign tonight, I’ll steal their tag line.

Let’s Not Undo All the Good.

Saturday is South Australia’s 10th straight day with no new cases.

But like other states and territories where new cases numbers are low, the SA government doesn’t want people to get complacent.

They’re launching an ad campaign tonight under the tagline “Let’s Not Undo All the Good.”

Queenslanders were allowed out from today for recreation after coronavirus restrictions were loosened.

People were allowed to travel up to 50km from their homes and be with members of their household, or with one other person. That included non-essential travel.

That meant Queenslanders could do radical stuff like laze on a beach, hang around on a park bench, go for a drive, and have a picnic in a park. And so they did.

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

The New Zealand Warriors rugby league team will touch down in Tamworth, NSW tomorrow after they were given a special exemption by Australia’s Border Force to enter the country.

New Zealand reported two new Covid-19 cases this morning. Matt Manukia, a sports reporter at TVNZ, says he’s been sent a welcome graphic from the team’s hosts in Tamworth.

Tamworth Warriors, anyone?

Here’s a quick look at the new cases that have been reported today by all the states and territories.

Zero cases have been reported in Tasmania, the ACT, South Australia and Western Australia. Still checking on the NT.

Queensland reported one case, New South Wales five and Victoria seven.

Afternoon. Graham Readfearn here from a sunny Brisbane, where the Queensland government has very slightly eased restrictions on people’s movement.

At lunchtime, the Queensland government launched a new health initiative to try to encourage people to stay healthy and build on all that home-based exercise that absolutely everyone has definitely been doing.

Queensland’s health minister, Steve Miles, says he wants Queenslanders to log on to the “Boost Your Healthy” website and “keep these healthy habits going as restrictions begin to be lifted”.

The government says it will be releasing daily workouts from famous Queensland sporting figures, including the Australian netball star Gretel Bueta and boxer Jeff Horn.

Here’s Horn’s workout. Do try this at home.

2 May 202002.00 EDT

Melissa Davey

Thanks for following our Covid-19 updates throughout the day. I’m handing the blog over to Graham Readfearn to take you through the evening.

Signing off from Melbourne, where restrictions are still firmly in place and where it’s 13C. I hope all you Queenslanders are enjoying your beaches and picnics.

Back to the deputy chief medical officer update. Prof Michael Kidd urged more people to download the CovidSafe app, with just over 4m downloads to date.

He said 611,000 tests had been carried out in Australia, and as of Friday the criteria for testing had been widened. Anyone with respiratory symptoms or fever or “even the slightest sniffle, cough or sweating” should contact their GP or the healthdirect phone line.

He said people with non-Covid health issues should look after their own health and should still call their doctors and arrange an appointment, many of which could be conducted via telehealth. Kidd was concerned people with chronic conditions in particular were putting off appointments and said people should not delay those appointments.

“If you have a child due for immunisation, please take your child to get their regular immunisations. If you need a test including cancer screening please continue to do this as you usually would,” he said.

Kidd thanked healthcare workers including those in aged, disability and home care, saying they were looking after the most vulnerable people in challenging times.

The West Australian health minister, Roger Cook, said that for the third day in a row no new virus cases had been recorded in the state. He announced the Therapaeutic Goods Administration had approved an order for up to 10,000 West Australian-manufactured face shields. They are being made in the suburb of Malaga, and will be rolled out to hospital staff. The shields have involved input from staff at Royal Perth hospital.

A deputy chief medical officer, Prof Michael Kidd, is giving an update, and saying there’s no “absolute number” of Covidsafe app downloads the government is aiming for, but that it wants as many people as possible to download it. A return to normality will depend on uptake of the contact tracing app, the prime minister said on Friday. Kidd said more than 4m people had downloaded it.

“Obviously the prime minister is keen to get the number up a lot further,” Kidd said.

He said there had been a glitch with the app, with reports that it may be interfering with diabetes-monitoring apps. He said work was being done to rectify that but in the meantime diabetes patients should prioritise their diabetes monitoring and uninstall the app if it was causing problems.

Kidd said 611,000 Covid-19 tests had been carried out in Australia to date, one of the highest testing rates in the world.

In Australian Covid-19 news so far today:

• Another two staff members at Sydney’s Newmarch House nursing home have tested positive for Covid-19 following the deaths of 13 residents. Anglicare, which manages the home, said on Saturday that the new infections occurred “despite having strict procedures and enforced infection control practices in place”.
• Queenslanders are enjoying their first weekend under eased restrictions which means they can leave their home for recreation. On Friday New South Wales partially relaxed its restrictions so that two adults (and any dependent children) can visit any other household. While restrictions have eased elsewhere in Australia, they remain in place in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.
• The New Zealand Warriors will arrive in Tamworth on Sunday and be able to train despite a 14-day isolation period, after receiving clearance from Border Force and the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton. They received final approvals on Saturday. But the Australian Medical Association warned sporting codes about rushing to start or restart competitions, and said they should wait until the medical experts advise it is safe.
• A coronavirus cluster has been uncovered at a Melbourne meat processing facility, the state’s health minister, Jenny Mikakos, said on Saturday. Mikakos declined to name the business and said it had been closed for cleaning and all staff were being tested.

More on flight QF614 from Melbourne to Brisbane which the Queensland health minister earlier said had a traveller on board with the virus. Queensland Health is in the process of contacting people from the 22 April flight. In a statement the department said:

We ask that passengers seated in rows 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 of this flight who have not already been contacted by Queensland Health call 13 HEALTH and advise that you were a passenger on this flight.

All other passengers are considered very low risk, however anyone with health concerns can contact 13 HEALTH.

Queensland health’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said 972 of the state’s 1,034 confirmed cases had recently travelled overseas or had close contact with a confirmed case, such as their partner or flatmate.

High-risk patients will now receive their Covid-19 test results within the hour, down from between 24 and 48 hours, the New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard, said.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) kits have been used in priority regional areas where clusters of concern were identified and will now be rolled out to 29 additional labs.

“The faster we can isolate higher-risk patients and quarantine their contacts, the less likely they can unknowingly spread it to others,” Hazzard said. “On average, test results are being processed in less than 48 hours from the far corners of this vast state which is an achievement in itself, given the issues with flights and logistics.”

The new, rapid PCR testing kits are presently in use in NSW Health Pathology laboratories in Broken Hill, Wagga Wagga, Orange, Coffs Harbour and Tamworth and 29 more labs across the state will commence rapid testing from next week.