The NT Government has moved to re-establish a highway checkpoint on the Barkly Highway at the Queensland border after two cases of COVID-19 were reported on the Sunshine Coast and following four Victorian travellers in their 60s being fined $5,000 after failing to lodge border entry forms, NT Police said.
The Northern Territory Government will offer COVID-19 vaccines to everyone over the age of 16 starting today, in a massive effort that will reportedly see a new mass vaccination centre set up by the end of the month. But details remain vague.
The head of the Territory’s nurse’s union says strike action remains an option if the Gunner Government does not reverse its decision to scrap rapid antigen COVID-19 testing for staff at the Howard Springs quarantine facility.
Two sisters who absconded from the Alice Springs COVID-19 quarantine facility on Sunday to see their mother and a boyfriend are back in quarantine – along with their loved ones, who were forced to quarantine with them after the breach, NT Police said.
NT chief health officer Hugh Heggie has been put into mandatory supervised quarantine at Howard Springs after returning from Victoria following the NT Government declaring Greater Melbourne a hotspot yesterday.
The NT Government has assured federal authorities that it is capable of managing resumed flights from India, with the target set of comfortably managing 50 COVID-positive cases at a time and up to 100 cases at capacity.
The NT Health Department has only recruited 160 of its targeted 400 staff members to run the Howard Springs quarantine facility as part of its $500 million management takeover from the Federal Government, as the merging of the international and domestic quarantine starts on Monday.
The Federal Government has announced that all flights from India will be temporarily suspended while the NT deals with its single highest number of COVID cases linked to repatriation flights. It comes amid questions about testing in India and reports from Indian news sites that people in the COVID ravaged country are allegedly faking COVID-19 tests.
A man from Western Australia who entered the NT via the South Australia border without submitting an online border entry form has been fined more than $5,000 after he was discovered at the campground in Yulara, NT Police said.
The Federal Government will reduce the number of repatriate flights from India into the Northern Territory by a third in response to a massive outbreak of COVID-19 in that country, but questions still remain over whether the NT Government is prepared to take over management of the international wing of the Howard Springs quarantine facility.
Ten new cases of COVID-19 reported in the NT over the last two days in people from the global coronavirus hotspot of India has raised questions about the government’s ability to take over managing the international side of the Howard Springs facility, as Health Minister Natasha Fyles admitted it is nowhere close to hiring the staff needed.
The Opposition has called on the Gunner Government to reveal details of how an external consultancy report that started as a COVID-19 review turned into a massive restructure of the NT’s health services and how much it is costing taxpayers.
