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Perth’s snap lockdown over the weekend came about as a result of a man who evidently contracted COVID-19 from guests in an adjoining room in hotel quarantine. If this sounds familiar, there’s a good reason – there have been a total of 16 documented leaks in hotel quarantine since November in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Importantly, airborne transmission has been implicated in several of them.
As Michael Toole points out today, the main exception here is the Northern Territory. Although the NT receives large numbers of international arrivals – and houses many returned travellers with COVID – it hasn’t seen any leaks. Single storey cabins, separate air conditioning systems, outdoor verandas and a nearby hospital make it fit for purpose. Toole says it’s now time to invest in similar facilities in every state and territory.
In the meantime, quarantine hotels in every jurisdiction must adhere to consistent, evidence-based standards – which recognise the now indisputable role of airborne transmission in these repeated outbreaks.
And in an open letter today, more than 700 health professionals and academics across Australia are urging the government to take action on another crucial problem — the monopoly on vaccines and means of producing them by wealthy countries. As Deborah Gleeson and Michael Toole explain, the world is relying on the pharmaceutical industry and market forces to solve the problems of vaccine shortages and the inequitable distribution of doses around
the world, but this isn’t working.
In other news, we’re so excited to announce our first Curious Kids picture book is out this week, edited by our very own Sunanda Creagh. In Why do tigers have whiskers? dive into the ocean to learn if sharks sneeze, dig deep with echidnas to find out how they breathe underground, and shimmy up a tree with your pet cat to learn how it uses its claws. Grab your copy here.
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Phoebe Roth
Deputy Editor, Health+Medicine
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Richard Wainwright/AAP
Michael Toole, Burnet Institute
Airborne transmission is likely to be behind several recent leaks in hotel quarantine. But the Northern Territory has a quarantine model that works.
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Anupam Nath/AP
Deborah Gleeson, La Trobe University; Michael Toole, Burnet Institute
Pfizer and Moderna are expected to make billions in revenue this year. It's time all vaccine producers share their IP, data and know-how with the rest of the world.
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Divyakant Solanki/AP/EPA
Liz Hicks, The University of Melbourne
COVID-19 has created a temporary but desperate minority of Australians. These are the roughly 34,000 citizens overseas who say they are stranded.
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Ajit Solanki/AAP
Rajib Dasgupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University
The emergence of an Indian "double mutant" strain of the coronavirus may explain the country's tragically soaring infection rates. Genomic testing and monitoring will be crucial in the weeks ahead.
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Amr Alfiky/AP
Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University; Nikolai Hampton, Edith Cowan University
Apple's latest iPhone operating system lets you opt out of having your online habits tracked by the apps you use. That's a big part of Facebook's business model, but don't expect a privacy revolution.
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Shutterstock
Lesley Andrew, Edith Cowan University
Nursing students are 90% female, often mature-age students who are still expected to carry most of the housework and childcare load while they study. Something has to give.
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Environment + Energy
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Bryan Lessard, CSIRO; Rocio Ponce-Reyes, CSIRO
Two billion people already eat 'prawns of the land', so why don't many Australians? A new CSIRO industry roadmap on edible insects explains why we should bring bugs into mainstream diets.
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Science + Technology
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Paul X. McCarthy, UNSW; Marian-Andrei Rizoiu, University of Technology Sydney
Our research provides the first comprehensive picture of long-term trends in online diversity, drawing on a dataset that's four times as large as the original Hubble Space Telescope data.
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Vera Weisbecker, Flinders University; Jeroen Smaers, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)
Some animals, such as California sea lions, have small brains relative to their body size, but are still impressively intelligent, showing brain evolution is even more complex than it appears.
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Geoff Spinks, University of Wollongong
Fibres that imitate the double helix of DNA can make artificial muscles more powerful than those found in nature.
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Rosalie Gillett, Queensland University of Technology; Kath Albury, Swinburne University of Technology; Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust, Queensland University of Technology
Granting police access to Tinder users' information is problematic for many reasons (even if the intent is to keep people safe).
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Arts + Culture
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Emily Brayshaw, University of Technology Sydney
Stuttgart flies under the radar as a tourist destination but it is a treasure trove of Expressionist art and works that exemplify post-war modernity.
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Cities
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Nicky Morrison, Western Sydney University; Gregory Paine, UNSW; Ryan van den Nouwelant, Western Sydney University; Susan Thompson, UNSW
NSW is developing a comprehensive new planning policy with the goal of creating healthy places. A new study finds those people who work as placemakers want these goals embedded in laws and budgets.
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Politics + Society
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
The government will aim at driving unemployment below pre-pandemic levels and avoid any sharp pivot towards “austerity” in its May 11 budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will say on Thursday.
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Michelle Grattan discusses cyber security with former chairman of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, David Irvine
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Patricia A. O'Brien, Georgetown University
Australia has sent help to its nearest neighbour to deal with its COVID crisis. But to really forge the next chapter in that relationship, we need to understand the history between the two countries.
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Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne
With a state election on Saturday, polls are showing different trends. Meanwhile, vaccine wariness among Australians is growing.
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Brianna Chesser, RMIT University
Removing a condom without consent during sex has been recognised as rape by a New Zealand court. Other jurisdictions could follow suit.
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Latoya Aroha Rule, University of Technology Sydney; Larissa Behrendt, University of Technology Sydney
The government continues to refuse collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families on addressing Aboriginal deaths in custody.
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Business + Economy
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Alex Maritz, La Trobe University
Young and successful entrepreneurs get the attention, but they are the exception, not the norm.
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David Hall, Auckland University of Technology
New Zealand recently became the first country to make climate-related financial disclosures mandatory, but it has some way to go to scale up investment in climate resilience.
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Health + Medicine
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Mark Patrick Taylor, Macquarie University; Neda Sharifi Soltani, Macquarie University; Scott P. Wilson, Macquarie University
We analysed the dust in 32 homes across Sydney, and found significant levels of microplastics. But having hard, non-varnished floors and vacuuming at least weekly might help.
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Education
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John Fischetti, University of Newcastle
We're told jobs requiring science and maths skills are growing faster than others. But industry reports also highlight human skills will be more important in the age of automation.
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Featured jobs
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— Canberra ACT, Australia
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— South Wharf VIC, Australia
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Featured Events & Courses
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Level 21, 15 Broadway, Ultimo, New South Wales, 2007, Australia — University of Technology Sydney
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8 week online course by BehaviourWorks Australia, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia — Monash University
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Online, Parkville, Victoria, 3109, Australia — The University of Melbourne
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online webinar, Perth, Western Australia, 6009, Australia — The University of Western Australia
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