Daily News Roundup

 

THURSDAY, JULY 1

NSW records 24 new locally acquired COVID cases

There were 59,941 tests reported to 8pm last night, compared with the previous day’s total of 68,220.

NSW Health administered 20,716 COVID-19 vaccines in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian urging people not to go to work, even if they’re classified as essential workers, if they have any COVID-19 symptoms.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says “around half” of the new cases were in isolation for “all or half” of their infectious period.

“Can I please urge anybody who leaves the house, assume that you have the virus or that people you come into contact with have the virus and act accordingly,” she says.

“This is so important for us moving forward.”

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Queensland has recorded two new community cases of COVID-19 on its second day of lockdown with a record number of tests done in the past 24 hours.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said one of the new cases was a close contact of a cluster linked to the Portuguese Family Centre in Brisbane and had been in quarantine.

The other is a 37-year-old-woman who worked at the Qatar Airline check-in counter at the Brisbane International airport.

Ms Palaszczuk said the woman was tested on Tuesday and returned a positive result yesterday but had been to very limited locations.

“We are very encouraged at the moment,” she said.

“We are not seeing more wide-scale community cases, it is very encouraging … we’re not out of the woods yet, we’ve got another 24 hours to see what happens.”

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young believed the 37-year-old probably acquired the virus while working at the airport. 

She became symptomatic on Sunday, with her infectious period dating back to last Friday.  

The woman attended Officeworks in North Lakes on Friday and went to Coles at Murrumba Downs, in the Moreton Bay region, on Sunday afternoon.

She also regularly attended Anytime Fitness in Griffith.

“She does have another person who lives in the same household who we are urgently testing and we are testing close contacts,” Dr Young said.

“She works at the check-in counter for Qatar Airlines, so that means she will be checking in not only the passengers but she would be involved with the crew and we do know that international flight crews are high risk.”

Lockdown is due to lift in south-east Queensland, Townsville, Magnetic Island and Palm Island at 6:00pm Friday, but a decision is expected tomorrow morning on whether it will be extended or lifted.

A record 29,990 tests were done in the past 24 hours as well as a record number of vaccinations with 18,162 people given the jab.

There are three ongoing outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant in Queensland.

One relates to a 19-year-old unvaccinated receptionist who worked near the COVID ward at The Prince Charles hospital in Brisbane.

Another was triggered by a NT Granites goldmine worker who caught the virus in Brisbane hotel quarantine, and another involving a Virgin flight crew member.

Victoria has recorded no new local COVID-19 cases, as health authorities try to prevent interstate outbreaks from reaching the community.

There were 29,149 test results received yesterday, and 19,219 doses of vaccine were administered at state-run sites.

Yesterday, Victoria’s Health Minister Martin Foley said the state’s plan to increase capacity at stadiums and theatres, which was announced last week, would be postponed and settings would remain at their current levels.

Mr Foley said the “prudent steps” were being taken to protect Victoria’s “hard-won” freedoms.

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Bill Cosby has walked free from prison and returned home, less than two hours after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction.

The decision came after Mr Cosby, 83, had served more than two years of a potential three-to-10-year sentence following his 2018 conviction.

The court found that a previous prosecutor had made a deal with Mr Cosby not to charge him in the case.

He was released from a state prison in Shippack, Pennsylvania, just before 2:30pm on Wednesday local time, a corrections department spokesperson said.

Around an hour later, he arrived at his mansion in Elkins Park, a Philadelphia suburb.

Wearing a short-sleeved shirt, he climbed out of a white SUV and flashed a “V” sign before walking into the house with the assistance of another man.

Mr Cosby smiled and nodded when asked if he was happy to be home, but he did not speak as reporters shouted questions.

“What we saw today was justice — justice for all Americans,” his spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, said.

“Mr Cosby’s conviction being overturned is for the world and all Americans who have been treated unfairly by the judicial system.”

In a statement, Mr Cosby’s accuser in the 2018 trial, Andrea Constand, and her attorneys said they were not only disappointed in the ruling, but concerned it could dissuade other victims from seeking justice.

“Once again, we remain grateful to those women who came forward to tell their stories,” they said.

The comedian and actor was best known for his role as the lovable husband and father in the 1980s television comedy series The Cosby Show, earning him the nickname “America’s Dad”.

But his family-friendly reputation was shattered after dozens of women accused him of sexual assault over a period of decades.

His conviction was widely seen as a landmark moment in the #MeToo movement that brought forth an array of allegations against powerful men in Hollywood and beyond.

Hours after being released, a statement was released on Mr Cosby’s Twitter account which thanked his fans, supporters, friends and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

“I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence,” the tweet said.

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Having not played competitive tennis since the Australian Open, going over three hours and two days was a test of Nick Kirgios’ lack of match fitness.

But the Australian prevailed on the big stage once again as he defeated 21st-seeded Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 9-7.

The match, like most Kyrgios performances, brought the drama, having been delayed overnight with the score tied at 3-3 in the fifth.

The Australian seemed to be a little stiff when the players first returned to court on Wednesday and was lucky not to receive a code violation when serving down 3-4 in the final set.

Set off in the previous game by a mobile phone going off, the Australian reacted angrily to crowd noise by loudly saying “what the f*** are you doing?” to members of the crowd.

He then hit a ball into the crowd in frustration but also avoided a code violation for ball abuse.

At 6-6 in the final set there was even more drama. Kyrgios let out a pained yell as he collapsed to the turf, his legs going out from underneath him when Humbert played a crosscourt forehand in behind him.

As Humbert checked on the Australian, the chair umpire again overlooked multiple swear words.

The match had become a shootout with both Kyrgios and Humbert banging down aces and unreturnable serves, seemingly destined to go on like that forever until one of them blinked.

Humbert was the one who blinked as he made uncharacteristic unforced errors to give Kyrgios triple break point.

The Australian broke on the third one, but despite his massive serve the match was not over.

Humbert got himself to 0-30 in the next game with a searing return winner and Kyrgios was forced to fend off two break back points, one with a flat backhand winner down the line, before he served it out to advance to the second round.

Kyrgios was typically honest in his post-match interview as he began it by quipping “not too bad for a part-time player”.

Indeed it was not. Humbert, who Kyrgios also beat in five sets at the Australian Open earlier this year, had been in great grasscourt form, winning six straight matches coming in.