Breaking news and live updates: Just one new case in hotel quarantine in Victoria; Sydney hospital closes department after case; Brisbane lockdown due to end
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Welcome to the 9News.com.au live blog for Monday, January 11, 2021. Brisbane will find out this morning if the three day lockdown will end with no new virus cases recorded over the weekend despite more than 50,000 tests in total. Calls are growing for Donald Trump to face impeachment in the US as around the world the COVID-19 crisis continues to escalate, especially in the UK and US. And the black box of the missing Indonesian flight has been found in the Java Sea.
Follow throughout the day for key breaking news developments, coronavirus updates and livestreams from Australia and around the world.
-Sydney hospital closes emergency department after positive virus case
- Hopes Brisbane lockdown will be lifted, with update due
LIVE FEED
Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency team are continuing a search operation for the 62 passengers of Sriwijaya Air flight 182, which crashed into the ocean shortly after takeoff on Saturday.
The Boeing 737-500 plane was heading from Jakarta to the city of Pontianak, on the Indonesian side of Borneo, when it lost contact at 2:40pm local time, 11 nautical miles north of Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
There were 50 passengers - 43 adults and 7 children - on board, as well as 12 crew members, according to Indonesia's Minister of Transportation.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has said he feels very optimistic about the economy recovering from the pandemic in 2021 but warned Australia is "not out the woods yet".
Mr Frydenberg told Today that the $7 billion in the Federal Government stage two tax cuts brought forward in October was boosting the economy.
"We're seeing the benefits of that money rolling out into people's pockets $7 billion that's coming into people's pockets in the last six months. Another $9 billion overcoming months as well."
By the middle of the year half of all Australians could be vaccinated against coronavirus if the Morrison government's five-phase rollout goes to plan.
With such an ambitious program ahead, and multiple quickly-developed vaccine candidates, Australians have big questions about the immunisation process.
Below are some queries sent in by Today viewers:
How do the makers know they're safe, with no long term side effects?
As millions of Brisbane residents wait to learn whether a three-day coronavirus lockdown will end this evening, an infectious disease expert said it will be weeks before authorities know if an outbreak has been quashed.
Brisbane was plunged into a three-day lockdown after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive to the highly infectious UK strain last week.
No new COVID-19 cases were recorded in Queensland over the weekend, bolstering hopes the measure has been successful.
The weekly tallies of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the United States have never been higher, and state officials are warning of more alarming patterns following the holiday season.
The total number of Americans infected with the virus surpassed 22 million on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University data, and more than 372,000 have died.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the state was seeing a "real and significant increase in cases and our positivity rate from people's gatherings around the holiday."
"This surge that we're in right now is at least twice the rate, the seriousness, of the previous surges that we have seen," the governor said on Friday. "This is our most dangerous time."
Colorado's state epidemiologist, Dr Rachel Herlihy, on Friday warned of "early signs" of a rise in Covid-19 cases.
"We are starting to see the impact of the holidays show up in our data," she said.
Health experts believe about one in 105 residents are currently contagious, Herlihy added.
Health officials are also concerned Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol may have consequences for the pandemic.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Friday that the riot would likely be a "surge event" that will have "public health consequences."
The US police officer killed when a mob stormed the Capitol building in Washington has been commemorated in an emotionally-charged procession.
Hundreds of Capitol Police officers have held a procession through the streets of Washington to remember Officer Brian D. Sicknick who died on Thursday.
Police officers, many with heads bowed, formed a line down Third Avenue in Washington DC and held a moment of silence as the officer's body was brought down the street in a hearse escorted by motorcycle outriders.
A Western Sydney Hospital has closed its Emergency Department after a coronavirus case attended on Saturday.
Ambulances have been told to bypass the Mount Druitt Hospital emergency department, which is shut for deep cleaning.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has implored Australia, and other wealthy nations, not to rush their COVID vaccinations amid fears some countries won't be able to inoculate their vulnerable populations.
Australia currently has distribution agreements with several vaccine candidates, including Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer, which is being used in the United Kingdom.
While Australia is yet to formally approve a vaccine candidate, the approval process has been accelerated Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed, as he unveiled an ambitious plan to vaccinate four million Australians by the end of March.
Authorities said they determined the location of the crash site and black boxes of a Boeing 737-500 on Sunday, a day after the aircraft crashed into the Java Sea with 62 people on board shortly after taking off from Indonesia's capital.
The head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, Bagus Puruhito, said officials believe they identified the location of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — the so-called black boxes — because emergency signals transmitted by the devices were detected by a navy ship's sonar system.
Two Republican senators now say President Donald Trump should resign in the wake of deadly riots at the Capitol and support for the House drive to impeach him a second time is gaining momentum.
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey on Sunday joined Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in calling for Mr Trump to "resign and go away as soon as possible" after a violent mob of his supporters broke into the Capitol on Wednesday.
Ms Murkowski, who has long voiced her exasperation with Mr Trump's conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Mr Trump simply "needs to get out."
There are hopes Brisbane's three-day lockdown will be lifted today after no new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Queensland yesterday.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Chief Medical Officer Jeannette Young will give an update this morning on whether restrictions will be lifted at 6pm today.
Brisbane's 2.5 million residents were sent into lockdown after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive to the highly infectious UK strain last week.
She tested negative on December 29 after flying to Brisbane from Melbourne and became infectious on January 2. She was in the community with the highly contagious strain of COVID- 19 for five days.
Welcome to the 9 News blog for Monday, January 11.
Brisbane will find out this morning if the three day lockdown will end with no new virus cases recorded over the weekend despite more than 50,000 tests in total.
Calls are growing for Donald Trump to face impeachment in the US, as police lined the streets in Washington to pay tribute to their colleague who was killed in the Capitol protest.
Around the world the COVID-19 crisis continues to escalate, especially in the UK and US. And the black box of the missing Indonesian flight has been found in the Java Sea.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2021
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