Australia Covid news live update: more than 61,000 new cases recorded; NSW health system ‘under pressure’ as hospitalisations rise | Australia news

Tasmania will scrap quarantine for international arrivals, he said.

“Control centre has reviewed risks and are considered equivalent to domestic arrivals.”

Vaccination requirements will still be in place.

Gutwein says the wait time for PCR tests is about 40 minutes at the moment. “Please be patient as we work through this.”

He says to be aware “that Covid is around”.

Tasmania has ordered 5 million RAT tests, he says. “If you are being asked to test, you’re a close contact, we will provide them.”

89% of the state’s cases are under the age of 50 and nearly 60% are aged between 20-19.

He says people “need to be sensible”.

“If you’re young and out and about, don’t go and visit vulnerable people or vulnerable settings.”

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein has been talking in Tasmania. He says that 92 % of the state’s population over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated.

The state should expect case numbers as high as 2000, according to Gutwein. Most of them will be “quite mild”.

“But I don’t want to sugarcoat this; we will, over time, see more people in hospital simply through the increased cases we’re seeing,” he says.

The head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Nancy Baxter, has this really good thread on getting/avoiding Covid.

It’s long, so I am going to break it up in two posts.

Part one:

Queensland health minister Yvette D’Ath said if you are not a household contact and you have been in contact with a case, but you do not have any symptoms, you do not need to test.

This is who needs to test:

• People with symptoms
• Household close contacts
• People who already have a positive RAT result

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she will be pushing national cabinet for free RATs for pensioners and low-income workers.

“This needs to be as simple as possible,” Palaszczuk said.

“For our pensioners, for our health cardholders, these should be made available for free.”

Gerrard said the “real number” of cases in the state is “significantly higher” than what the state is recording.

“We know that number is going to increase in the coming weeks,” he said.

It has been a huge spike for Queensland, which recorded 6,781 cases today, up from 5,699 yesterday.

More than 29,000 people were tested in the last 24 hours.

There are now more than 32,000 active cases in the state, with 265 people being treated for Covid in hospital.