We'll give it a shot

A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK?

The Morrison government has signed an agreement with British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical AstraZeneca to produce a COVID-19 vaccine developed at Oxford University, if trials prove successful.

As The New Daily reports, Scott Morrison has pledged to make a successful version of the drug free for all Australians, but warned that there is no guarantee it or any other vaccines will be successful, and that the government is looking to make agreements with other global candidates.

The news comes as trials continue for 30 major vaccine candidates, including, as the ABC reported last week, six candidates in larger phase three trials. Russia has also begun manufacturing their candidate, a drug the government alleges, but has yet to demonstrate, has passed phase one and two trials.

PS: As The Conversation explains, the news also follows media hype over yet another potential COVID-19 treatment — this time head lice drug ivermectin — despite the fact it has not passed any clinical trials.

HOTEL QUARANTINE STUFF-UPS APPARENTLY CONTAGIOUS

According to the ABC NSW health authorities are investigating how a security guard became infected while working at the Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay, after genome sequencing traced their infection to a quarantined overseas traveller.

There is no indication of any breaches, but NSW are still investigating how the guard became infected; they worked August 3, 4, 7 and 8, developed symptoms on August 11, and were diagnosed on August 15, while the traveller was swabbed on August 2 and received their positive result on August 4.

In an industrial lesson Australia apparently failed to learn from Melbourne’s outbreak, the guard also worked at Sydney Market Flemington while they were infectious; as The Guardian notes, the news has also prompted calls from infection prevention experts to replace guards with nurses.

Elsewhere, WA Police have charged two women after they flew into Perth on Monday night without a permit and then allegedly escaped hotel quarantine to attend a party.

PS: On the more draconian end of the spectrum, the Herald Sun reports that Ombudsman Deborah Glass has received more than 150 complaints from residents in the locked-down North Melbourne housing tower.

WHO NEEDS MONEY ANYWAY

As The New Daily reports, Department of Social Services officials have told a Senate inquiry that aged pensioners will not see payment boost come September, with the next possible chance for an indexation bump not due until March.

The pension’s link to the consumer price index means that, as economist Stephen Koukoulas notes, indexing in September would actually mean a lower rate.

At the same hearing, Minister for Social Services Anne Ruston again declined to confirm whether JobSeeker payments will return to the below-poverty rate of $40 a day by the end of 2020.

PS: According to the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union, there are about 106,000 jobs advertised on Seek and roughly 1,621,500 Australian jobseekers. But who knows, maybe a little starvation really is what’s needed to beat those odds?

BOTTLED UP TENSIONS

Finally, the ABC reports that China has launched an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine exports, an escalation of trade tensions that follows sanctions on beef and barley throughout the year.

While Trade Minister Simon Birmingham labelled the development “very disappointing and perplexing,” and noted that wine is not sold at below-market prices or subsidised to China, it hasn’t exactly come out of nowhere; Australia has, as Crikey noted back in May, launched nearly 170 similar investigations against Chinese importers since 2012.

PS: In a rare internal rebuke against the Chinese government, The Guardian reports that a former professor at the country’s elite Central Party School, Cai Xia, has accused Xi Jinping of “killing a country” and claimed many others want to leave the ruling party.