TUESDAY, MAY 26
Two Sydney schools have been closed after students tested positive for coronavirus, just one day after pupils made a full-time return to campuses across the eastern states.
Parents were told to pick up their children from Moriah College, in Queens Park, and nearby Waverley College after the infections were confirmed.
A Waverley College spokesperson said the campus had been “almost completely evacuated”.
Staff “immediately activated our critical response to get the boys home quickly and safely”, the school said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a Moriah College spokesperson said its campus would be closed for cleaning until next week.
The Waverley student that tested positive is in Year 7, while the Moriah case was found in a Year 5 pupil.
Earlier this month, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said “a return to full-time face-to-face teaching is safe”, but conceded her Government expected coronavirus cases would rise as students returned to campuses.
In other COVID-19 news the World Health Organization (WHO) has suspended testing of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus patients due to safety concerns, according to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Hydroxychloroquine has been touted by US President Donald Trump and others as an effective treatment for COVID-19.
Mr Trump said last week that he was taking the drug to help prevent infection, although he later announced that he had stopped taking it.
In an online media briefing on Monday, Dr Tedros said the “temporary pause” on the hydroxychloroquine arm of the WHO’s global clinical trial had been ordered after a paper was published in a leading medical journal.
The paper, in The Lancet, concluded that people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of heart problems and death.
“The executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity trial while the safety data is reviewed by the data safety monitoring board,” Dr Tedros said.
Meanwhile, a US biotechnology company is beginning human trials in Australia of a coronavirus vaccine with hopes of releasing a proven vaccine this year.
Novavax has begun the first phase of the trial in which 131 volunteers in Melbourne and Brisbane will test the safety of the vaccine and look for early signs of the vaccine’s effectiveness, the company’s research chief Dr. Gregory Glenn said, according to Associated Press.
“We are in parallel making doses, making vaccine in anticipation that we’ll be able to show it’s working and be able to start deploying it by the end of this year,” Glenn told a virtual press conference in Melbourne from Novavax’ headquarters in Maryland.
###
A 43-year-old man has spent the night in police custody after being charged with the murder of his young daughter on Brisbane’s southside.
Officers attending an emergency call yesterday morning discovered the body of a four-year-old girl at a house at Bent Street in Cannon Hill.
Police said the child died before emergency crews arrived at the scene.
A crime scene was established and police also cordoned off access to the street.
Officers spent several hours door-knocking neighbours’ homes in an attempt to find out how the girl had died.
Detectives and forensic officers remained at the house into the night.
Late last night, police announced they had taken a man into custody.
At this stage, the cause of the young girl’s death has not been revealed.
Police are continuing to investigate and have appealed for anybody with knowledge of the circumstances leading to the girl’s sudden death to come forward.
The man will appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court later this morning.
SheSociety is a site for the women of Australia to share our stories, our experiences, shared learnings and opportunities to connect.
Leave a Reply