Australia has been given an ‘early mark’, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says, announcing the meeting to decide whether to lift lockdown measures has been brought forward to next Friday
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The latest
- Decision on lifting restrictions to be brought forward to next Friday, says PM, and new aged care funding announced.
- France sells off the furniture to support pandemic response.
- Biologics for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases may not increase risk of severe COVID-19.
- Australia has been given an ‘early mark’, said Prime Minister Scott Morrison after today’s national cabinet meeting, announcing that the meeting to decide whether to lift lockdown measures has been brought forward to next Friday 8 May.
The decision to consider lifting restrictions early came about because the cabinet felt that Australia had satisfied most of the conditions that had been previously set to allow consideration of this.
These included community adherence to public health measures, the implementation of a surveillance plan, expansion of testing capacity, enough PPE, an adequately trained and prepared workforce, and better modelling.
One of the areas that both the PM and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy emphasised was still a work-in-progress was contact tracing, and both thumped the tub repeatedly about Australians downloading the COVIDSafe app.
The other big news was that the aged care sector is getting an additional $205 million – $900 per occupied residential bed in metropolitan areas and $1350 in regional areas – to help with the additional costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, including PPE, screening staff and visitors, and workforce costs. The sector has also agreed to a nationally consistent visitations code for aged care facilities during the pandemic.
- France is literally selling off the furniture to help fund its COVID-19 response. According to a report in The Guardian, France’s national furniture collection (yes, they have one) – the Mobilier National – is putting together a list of ‘declassified’ antique objects that are considered not to have much heritage value and therefore can be sold.
The collection is known to occasionally sell off items, but The Guardian says it’s reportedly rare for a large number to be sold off in one hit.
This prompted some speculation in the TMR office (virtually-speaking) about what loose change Australia could find down the back of the cultural sofa that might be put towards helping us beat COVID-19: Kylie’s gold hot-pants? Alexander Downer’s fishnets? One of Dr Karl’s colourful shirts?
4.05pm, 1 May
- There’s a festive feeling in the air in NSW today. For the first time in a month, two adults will be legally allowed to visit friends or family at their home, expressly for the purposes of staving off ennui, boredom and social iso-madness.
But before you rush to change into clothes that have actually been washed, manscape your landscapes, brush your hair (or shave your head), grab a bottle of something and jump in the car, you might want to check out how many cases of COVID-19 are in their vicinity.
TMR’s data scientist Steven Pollack has created this handy suburb map for NSW to help you navigate this new pandemic landscape.
[covid-19-graph]COVID-19CaseLoadbyState_15861732214150/BubbleMap[/covid-19-graph]
3.45pm, 1 May
- With restrictions starting to relax a tad this weekend in NSW, it’s interesting to look back at the timeline of how public health interventions helped crash the curve. TMR data scientist Steven Pollack has created an interactive graph showing when the restrictions came into effect and how that has shaped the COVID-19 daily infection curve. We’ll come back in a fortnight and see how the lifting of restrictions changes the trajectory of this graph. (If you want to visit the interactive version of this graph, it’s here).
- Patients taking biologics for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases do not appear to be at greater risk of severe COVID-19 infection, according to a New York case series published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The research letter reported on 86 patients with immune-mediated inflammatory disease – including psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and ankylosing spondylitis – who either had confirmed or highly suspected symptomatic COVID-19 infection. Nearly three-quarters of these patients were being treated with biologics or JAK inhibitors for their inflammatory disease
Overall, 16% of the patients in the study were hospitalised, which the authors said was a similar rate of hospitalisation to that seen in the general population, and only 11% of patients treated with biologics were hospitalised.
“These findings suggest that the baseline use of biologics is not associated with worse Covid-19 outcomes,” they wrote.
- And while we’re on a musical theme, we were delighted to learn that one of the financial supporters of a major COVID-19 treatment research initiative in the United States is none other than the fabulous Dolly Parton.
The singer, actor and philanthropist has donated US$1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, which has partnered with AstraZeneca to identify and develop SARS-CoV-2 antibodies for clinical use.
*sings* “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine … VACCIIIIIIINE!”
- A group of musically-inclined GPs who call themselves The Euthymics – who you might recall from several GP conferences in recent years – has taken advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown to put together their first virtual music video. The group are currently scattered across the country, from the Tiwi Islands down to Gippsland, yet still managed put some groovy tunes together, which you can enjoy here.
- Got an appointment with a patient who thinks they might have COVID-19? The RACGP has released step-by-step guidance to help GPs navigate this scenario both for telehealth and in-person consultatations, including details on assessing symptoms by video or telephone, gathering contact history, and shared decision making about management.
- Here are today’s confirmed COVID-19 infection figures from around Australia:
National – 6,762 (up 16 – actually it’s 17 but one case from yesterday turned out not to be a case) with 92 deaths and 5720 recovered.
ACT – 106
NSW – 3025
NT – 27
QLD – 1033
SA – 438
TAS – 221
VIC – 1361
WA – 551
Disclaimer: The content on the Medical Republic COVID-19 blog is independently created by Medical Republic without input from Boehringer Ingelheim Pty Ltd. The views, information, or opinions expressed on the Medical Republic COVID-19 blog are Medical Republic’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Boehringer Ingelheim Pty Ltd. Boehringer Ingelheim Pty Ltd is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of any content on the Medical Republic COVID-19 blog.
