Australia Covid live news update: Victoria reports 1,965 new cases and five deaths; NSW records 580 cases as new Delta strain investigated

Returning to Victoria, there’s a few questions around whether Victoria Police are sick of enforcing the health rules, and whether it has damaged the reputation of Victoria Police.

Assistant treasurer Danny Pearson, who was acting police minister when Lisa Neville was on sick leave recently, said he’s not aware of officers who don’t want to enforce the rules, and won’t comment on operational issues when asked what he would say to police officers who do not want to enforce the rules.

Asked whether arts venues could get certainty on larger crowd sizes when restrictions are eased, Pearson says it is a “work in progress”:

I think this is very much a work in progress and I can’t give you definitive timelines now as to when precisely you will open up to that level. What I can say is that this package is going to be really important. I think the trials we will be running in regional Victoria commencing on Monday across those six local government areas will play a really important step forward as we start that process of opening up.

The Victorian assistant treasurer, Danny Pearson, has announced $15m in tailored support for the Victorian arts and creative sector, with $10m targeting small to medium organisations, and $5m to go to individual artists.

It will be delivered through Creative Victoria to keep them going and employing people as restrictions ease.

It will be comprised of grants of up to $5,000 for creative practitioners, and $10,000 for collectives, organisations and businesses.

Victoria will no longer require secondary close contacts to isolate, the deputy health secretary, Kate Matson, has announced.

Victoria is no longer chasing Covid zero, Matson says, meaning forcing secondary contacts to isolate is no longer necessary.

It has been the practice in Melbourne for a while, but will now apply statewide.

Matson says they will still be contacting primary close contacts and requiring them to isolate, but the change will release 16,000 people from isolation this week, who will receive a text message advising them of that.

It will also make it easier for household members of primary close contacts to get groceries and work while the primary close contact is isolated away from the rest of the household.

Again, there is a very important difference between someone who is known to have come into contact with a confirmed case, and then someone who has come into contact with that primary close contact. And the risk is different.

So this just recognises the changing risk and the changing environment that we are in, we are no longer chasing Covid zero in Victoria, and we have 17,000 active cases in Victoria at this point in time.

The Victorian health department is warning a Virgin Australia cabin crew member has tested positive for Covid-19 and worked while infectious from 4 to 6 October on six flights.

Other crew members have been deemed close contacts, and passengers on those flights are being contacted by the relevant jurisdictions in NSW and South Australia.

The flights covered include:

• 4 October, VA 219 from Melbourne to Adelaide
• 4 October, VA 218 Adelaide to Melbourne
• 5 October, VA 827 Melbourne to Sydney
• 5 October, VA 808 Sydney to Melbourne
• 6 October, VA 1593 Melbourne to Newcastle
• 6 October, VA 1594 Newcastle to Melbourne

The Victorian health department deputy secretary, Kate Matson, says 735 of the 1,965 cases reported on Saturday are in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, with majorities in Hume and Whittlesea. There were 464 cases in the west of Melbourne, with the majority in Melton.

The south-east had 533 cases, with Casey having the majority. The eastern suburbs had 125 cases.

There were 90 new cases in regional Victoria, including 20 in Mildura, which went into a seven-day lockdown overnight. There were also 13 in Baw Baw, 12 in Mitchell shire, eight in greater Shepparton, seven in Latrobe, six in greater Geelong, and three in Ballarat.

The assistant treasurer, Danny Pearson, has gone through the Victorian case numbers today:

538 people are currently in hospital with Covid-19, 117 are in ICU and 83 are on the ventilator.

Turning to the tests and vaccines. So there were 73,443 tests processed yesterday. And I want to thank each and every one of those tens of thousands of Victorians for coming forward and getting tested. 41,177 vaccines were administered at our state hubs yesterday.

And many thousands more were administered by GPs and pharmacies right across this state. 85% of the over-16 population have now received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 57% have received a second dose, which is a fantastic effort.

Here’s more detail from NSW Health on the Covid outlook.

Eleven deaths, including three women and eight men.

We are also now just waiting for the Victorian daily press conference to start.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant says the returned traveller associated with the new Delta strain came back to Australia in September, but it’s not clear beyond that, and stresses again it is not any more concerning than the existing one.

So what’s happened is this dates back to September when this returned traveller came in. To what we’re investigate something was there someone else on the plane that was positive? How could it have got out? What was the mechanism of that? And we haven’t sequenced every one of our isolates from all our people and so really we’re still finding out how much transmission is being generated in the community from these cases. That will evolve over time. The main thing for the community so understand is that there’s nothing different about this.

It’s a different Delta strain but it’s still a Delta strain so we know its characteristics are the same, it’s likely to be more transmissible than previous strains, it’s associated with more hospitalisations for older age groups, but it’s not got anything that makes us more concerned about this strain versus the others. We will work through those investigations in the ordinary course but it really doesn’t change the public health supports response.

That’s where ABC cut off the NSW press conference, but we will bring you more updates as they come through.

Perrottet won’t say whether the next step in the roadmap will happen on 18 October, when NSW is due to hit 80% double dose for those aged 16 and over.

He also won’t pre-empt any potential further changes to the roadmap.

Health minister Brad Hazzard also clears up that unvaccinated people can only gather in groups of two for outdoor gym sessions from Monday.

Perrottet denies he has sidelined health advice in his changes to the roadmap:

That’s untrue. There’s always different advice given and different opinions. I saw an opinion the other day on the 7.30 report that said the opposite from a leading doctor who said the changes we’ve made in bringing forward the roadmap are modest and will ensure we keep people safe as we open up. This is a balance and that’s the approach the New South Wales government has taken successfully over the course of the last 18 months. We listened to the health advice. We listened to the economic advice. We listened to the mental health advice as well.

Will be interesting to see if the NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, speaks to this.

On whether there will be enough teachers when schools return to face-to-face learning from 25 October, with some teachers not vaccinated yet, Perrottet says the advice is schools will be able to make it work and have been “working tirelessly” to make it happen.