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Mexico deaths pass 100,000 as fragments found in Victorian sewage

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A gravedigger works at a cemetery in Valle de Chalco in Mexico where the pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 people.
A gravedigger works at a cemetery in Valle de Chalco in Mexico where the pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 people. Photograph: Claudio Cruz/AFP/Getty Images
A gravedigger works at a cemetery in Valle de Chalco in Mexico where the pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 people. Photograph: Claudio Cruz/AFP/Getty Images

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Marshall is asked if he admits there have been shortcomings in South Australia’s hotel quarantine system.

“Not at all. There will be a thorough investigation but what we have said since day one is this is a highly contagious disease ... we know that, very highly trained nurses and with all of their PPE, they have been able to contract the disease, so we know there is a risk associated with every time we bring somebody into this country,” he says.

“But we do believe we have an obligation to play our part in this national repatriation of Australian citizens.”

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Steven Marshall is talking about the lifting of the hard lockdown in South Australia at midnight tonight.

“The vast majority of businesses will be back trading. There will be some restrictions right through to the 1 December,” he says.

“The No 1 priority is getting businesses stood up as quickly as possible.”

He is asked if there will be compensation for businesses affected by the hard lockdown this week.

“Compensation is not something we are contemplating at this point in time,” Marshall says.

“What we’re trying to do is get through the situation, this very difficult situation, get back to the situation that we had prior to the Parafield cluster emerging. Which was, I think, the best level of restrictions in the entire country.”

He says he doesn’t want South Australian residents to think that there is no further risk in the community once that lockdown lifts tonight.

“I don’t want anyone watching this telecast to think that the risks are over,” he says.

“While the risk is far more diminished ... the risk is still there, it is a real risk that we need to adhere very strictly to the restrictions.”

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Two new cases in Queensland today, both in hotel quarantine. There are no new local cases.

Saturday 21 November – coronavirus cases in Queensland:

• 2 new confirmed cases
• 13 active cases
• 1,192 total confirmed cases
• 1,322,370 tests conducted

Sadly, six Queenslanders with COVID-19 have died. 1,171 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/GPqtM9RKpR

— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) November 20, 2020

Reporters are asking about the timeline in South Australia from the case at the pizza bar and the decision to lock down the state.

A reporter asks: Can you give us a precise time, please, about when you were aware or made aware of the pizza box, and then the decision to lock down, to recommend a lockdown to the commissioner?

Spurrier: I cannot tell you exact times, you know, I am very busy and I got lots of information coming to me. But [we heard] about the Stamford case and told the press. Later that evening, certainly after eight or nine o’clock at night, when I got home, I received this other case, which I was told was the pizza delivery person ... I know people have a thing about the pizza box but it was a person that had a pizza there or a pizza delivery but had only had a small time of exposure to the pizza bar.

That meant that anyone else who had a short time of exposure in the same setting could have potentially contracted the virus.

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NSW records no new local Covid-19 cases

New South Wales has recorded another day of no new locally acquired cases of Covid-19.

Ten cases were reported in overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, bringing the total number of cases in NSW since the start of the pandemic to 4338.

There were 16,329 tests reported to 8pm last night, compared with 18,391 in the previous 24 hours.

NSW Health is treating 70 Covid-19 cases, none of whom are in intensive care. Most cases, 96 per cent, are being treated by NSW Health in non-acute, out-of-hospital care.

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South Australia’s police commissioner, Grant Stevens, has been talking about the investigation involving the Woodville pizza bar and the worker who failed to disclose his job at the bar.

He says there are 20 officers following up on that one case.

Stevens says the worker involved is a 36-year-old man on a temporary graduate’s visa.

The man is in quarantine and the investigation is continuing.

Spurrier is saying early detection of those first cases made it possible for health authorities to trace and get a handle on the cluster quickly.

She makes some clarifications about the case linked to the Woodville Pizza Bar, which is now subject to an investigation.

Spurrier says: “To be clear, the decision to lock down hard, and I know it has been very difficult for people in South Australia, and perhaps difficult to understand, was not based on the interview with one man.

“We would never make those decisions in isolation of just one piece of information, it is very complex.”

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A little more from that press conference in South Australia.

The chief public health officer, Nicola Spurrier, says the state is averaging 28 hours to turn around results of a Covid-19 test.

She says the next week will be crucial.

“It is now the time of this outbreak that we will start to see, in the next week, anyone in the community who we haven’t been able to identify through our extensive contact tracing who may start to become positive,” she says.

She says now is the time for anyone with any symptoms, even if they are minor, to get tested.

South Australia records one new Covid-19 case

South Australia’s chief health officer, Nicola Spurrier, says the state has one new confirmed case of Covid-19. It is a close contact of another case and the person had been in isolation so there is no risk to the community.

“He has been in quarantine since his partner tested positive, so it is definitely linked to the Parafield cluster,” she says.

“We do expect to see more cases, but we are hoping that they will all be people in quarantine, and we are actually doing regular testing of people in quarantine.”

There are now 26 cases linked to the cluster and more than 5400 close contacts are in quarantine.

“We still have some work to do, but just to say that we have made huge inroads into the investigation and getting on top of this outbreak,” Spurrier says.

The South Australian premier, Steven Marshall, has been speaking in Adelaide.

He says he is pleased the state’s hard lockdown will lift at midnight tonight.

But he wants to make clear “we are not out of the woods yet”.

“The expert health advice we have received is that we are still managing a very dangerous cluster and although we are reducing those restrictions, we are still very concerned about this cluster,” he says.

“There are still many people that we need to identify and put into a quarantine situation and get testing results and that needs to happen today, all resources have been deployed to that very important task.”

US president-elect Joe Biden, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed in a meeting on Friday that Congress should pass a package of coronavirus economic aid in its current session, Reuters reports.

“That package should include resources to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, relief for working families and small businesses, support for state and local governments trying to keep frontline workers on the payroll, expanded unemployment insurance and affordable health care for millions of families,” the joint statement, released by Biden’s office, said.

Biden, who is due to take office on 20 January, has been pushing for quick action on a coronavirus relief bill, but Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been far apart for months on the scope and cost of such a measure.

Schumer said on Thursday that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had agreed to resume coronavirus relief talks. Staff members representing McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy met on Thursday, according a senior Democratic aide.

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In the US, officials have confirmed Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, tested positive for Covid-19 this week.

He is experiencing no symptoms, according to a spokesman.

The president’s eldest son managed to evade infection after the White House super-spreader event earlier this year led to positive tests for many around him, including his father and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle.

But he tested positive at the start of the week for Covid-19, according to a statement from his spokesman.

“Don has been quarantining out at his cabin since the result,” the spokesman said. “He’s been completely asymptomatic so far and is following all medically recommended guidelines.”

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Reuters reports:

The US Food and Drug Administration’s outside advisers will meet on 10 December to discuss whether to authorise the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech for emergency use, the agency said on Friday.

The move comes after Pfizer applied for the authorisation of its Covid-19 vaccine earlier in the day, the first such application in a major step toward providing protection against the new coronavirus.

“While we cannot predict how long the FDA’s review will take, the FDA will review the request as expeditiously as possible,” FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement.

The meeting of Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will discuss the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine candidate.

The FDA is not obligated to abide by its advisory panel recommendations, but typically does.

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In Australia, Victoria’s health minister, Martin Foley, has been speaking in Melbourne about the traces of coronavirus that were detected in sewage in the Altona catchment.

The catchment covers suburbs including Altona, Altona Meadows, Laverton, Point Cook and Sanctuary Lakes, and residents or people who have visited are being encouraged to get tested if they have any symptoms.

Foley says detection of the virus in wastewater was unexpected.

“The result is really unexpected, given that there have been some eight weeks since the last known resident in these areas had a coronavirus illness or diagnosis,” he says.

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The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, will urge other G20 leaders to take more ambitious action to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and to address climate change at a weekend virtual summit in Saudi Arabia, Reuters reports.

In remarks ahead of the meeting, Johnson appealed to leaders of the other nations that make up the G20 group of major economies to honour their promise to do “whatever it takes to overcome the pandemic and protect lives and livelihoods”.

He will also use Sunday’s session to call on those leaders yet to make net zero commitments to make the same pledge, just under a month before Britain co-hosts the Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December.

“The G20 committed in March to do ‘whatever it takes to overcome the pandemic and protect lives and livelihoods’. As we meet this weekend, we must hold ourselves to account for that promise,” he said before addressing the summit.

“If we harness the collective ingenuity and resources of the G20, we can chart a path out of the pandemic and build a better, greener future.”

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In the US, Wisconsin’s governor issued an emergency health order on Friday requiring face masks to be used indoors except at home, a move aimed at slowing a surge in coronavirus infections that is pushing hospitals to the limits of their capacity.

The face-covering mandate marked the latest in a flurry of new restrictions by state and local officials nationwide to tamp down Covid-19 cases soaring with the onset of winter.

Public health experts say greater social mixing and indoor gatherings as the weather turns colder ahead of the holiday season is fuelling the escalating contagion, threatening to inundate already strained healthcare systems.

“Wisconsin hospitals are overwhelmed and facing staffing shortages,” said the Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, a Democrat, according to Reuters.

His state is one of several in the upper midwest registering some of the highest rates of positive results from Covid-19 tests.

The order, which remains in effect for 60 days, requires everyone to wear masks indoors whenever non-household members are present.

Children younger than five years of age are exempt, as are individuals who have breathing difficulties.

The governor announced the declaration of an emergency hours after one of the nation’s leading public health officials, Dr Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, appealed to Americans to avoid unnecessary travel and limit social gatherings during next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

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