A major global cruise operator has reintroduced vaccine and mask-wearing mandates on its Australian ships due to a “rapid rise” in Covid cases across the nation. The announcement comes following a Covid-19 outbreak onboard Carnival Cruise Line’s Majestic Princess, which infected 800 people before the passengers disembarked in Sydney last weekend. Carnival Cruise Line issued … Read more
During the early days of January this year, in the heat of the Australian summer, the streets of Melbourne’s central business district had descended into brief, surreal chaos. People sat across the pavement, groaning as they furiously rubbed their faces. Puddles of milk were scattered across the street after people had rushed through the adjacent … Read more
I come from four generations of type 2 diabetes. On World Diabetes Day, I think of my brother, Jamal, who lived in Australia. To my great misfortune, he passed away at 53 from diabetes complications (“An Unexpected Grief Down Under”). I miss him so much. In the last years of his life, he took insulin to … Read more
An Australian man has been sentenced to 129 years in a Philippine jail as part of a child sexual abuse case involving victims as young as 18 months, a prosecutor said Wednesday. It was the second conviction for Peter Gerard Scully, who is already serving a life sentence for an initial batch of charges involving … Read more
Health groups are urging the Albanese government to lay out a clear timetable and allocate resources to fulfil an election commitment to establish a new Australian Centre for Disease Control. The promise to establish a CDC was made in the middle of the Covid pandemic in late 2020, with the new centre to focus on … Read more
One quarter of intensive care resources in a major regional tertiary hospital have been used to treat critical illness directly related to alcohol consumption, a Queensland physician claims. The intensive care physician told Guardian Australia he was alarmed at the steep rise in cases of severe, end-stage alcohol-related disease he has seen “in just a … Read more
Jorge Martin smashed the nine-year-old Phillip Island lap record Saturday to grab pole position for the Australian MotoGP, with world champion Fabio Quartararo coming in fifth. In dry and partly cloudy conditions, the Spaniard ensured he will start at the front of the grid on Sunday with a blistering lap of one minute and 27.767 … Read more
Long Covid clinics across the country are being inundated with requests for assessments from patients struggling with ongoing symptoms, an inquiry has heard. Doctors told the federal parliamentary inquiry into long and repeated coronavirus infections that they were struggling to keep up with demand as waitlists increased. At least 10 million Australians have been infected … Read more
What we learned: Wednesday, 17 August And with that, we will close the blog for the day. Here’s what happened today: Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said Scott Morrison made “the wrong call” by secretly swearing himself into five ministerial portfolios, but says the member for Cook has no reason to resign. Morrison apologised to former … Read more