Worried sick

SICK AND TIRED

At least 150 Victorian health care workers are currently infected with COVID-19, with The Age reporting an increase of 36 cases in the sector in just two days. The state’s record 317 new COVID-19 cases yesterday brings the total number of active cases to 2128, with 109 people in hospital including 29 in intensive care.

Although the state has once again paused category three elective surgeries, the ABC notes that Dan Andrews has rejected a rumoured “Stage Four” lockdown for now — which could include everything from more school and business closures to mandatory masks in public.

However, as the Herald Sun reports, the Victorian government has clarified that “unreasonable travel” for those locked down in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire “would include travel within the restricted area to exercise or outdoor recreation where that type of exercise can be done closer to home,” suggesting that travelling outside of neighbourhoods could result in fines.

Finally, The Age reports that Victoria’s Health Department told a Werribee aged care home in the midst of their outbreak it could not transfer four residents who tested positive to the hospital and would need to manage its own workforce to look after them.

SA UPDATE: With South Australia recording their first case in a fortnight after a Victorian — who had tested negative after flying in from overseas — entered the state, Premier Steven Marshall has announced coronavirus testing will be mandatory for those travelling into the state from Victoria, with anyone entering from midnight on Saturday required to take the test within 24 hours and then again on their 12th day of quarantine.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

According to The New Daily, the Morrison government will invest $400 million into the Location Incentive program — via JobMaker — to entice filmmakers to the country, after the program helped support forthcoming blockbusters such as Godzilla vs Kong, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

But in less whizz-bang recovery news, the AFR ($) reports that Scott Morrison has flagged extending COVID-19-era exemptions to the Fair Work Act for employers who no longer use JobKeeper, a move that puts him on a collision course with Labor and unions.

The announcements come after new ABS figures put unemployment at a 22-year high of 7.4% — a figure that, as the Sydney Morning Herald notes, would be closer to 12% it included the 230,000 people on JobKeeper and 370,000 who left the job market.

JOBS WATCH: According to The Australian ($), new modelling by Australia’s “Group of Eight” universities forecasts 6700 jobs will be lost as a lack of foreign students creates a $2 billion fiscal cliff.

WHAT'S THE MATTER? CHICKEN?

According to an Age investigation, Labor Party documents detailing allegations of corruption, forgery and branch-stacking were removed from a staffer to former Victorian government minister Marlene Kairouz’s garage and dumped in a suburban chicken shop’s bin just weeks after Victoria’s anti-corruption commission announced a probe into similar allegations facing state ministers.

Tony Peng — the staffer to Kairouz, the ALP powerbroker who resigned following branch-stacking allegations against her and Adem Somyurek — has reportedly blamed his 24-year-old son for removing the documents from the garage and binning them four km away.

REST INSURED

With the US experiencing a second wave so intense that 22 states and two territories have set daily COVID-19 records since July 1 you might be surprised to hear that, according to Axios, health insurer UnitedHealth Group has registered a record $6.6 billion in profits in their second quarter.

Apparently, even after a record 5.4 million workers lost their health insurance due to COVID-19’s economic impact, more Americans held off on going to the doctor or hospital for elective operations, which in turn resulted in fewer medical claims that needed to be paid.

VATICAN TELLS BISHOPS TO REPORT SEXUAL ABUSE

Finally, and only a couple of centuries too late, the Vatican has released a new manual that, although the ABC notes it lacks the force of a new law, directs bishops to report sexual abuse by priests to competent civil authorities.