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Australia Covid updates live: NSW due to hit single dose target; Singapore Airlines cancelling dozens of international flights

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Lifting lockdown restrictions in two stages in New South Wales could overwhelm intensive care units for up to five weeks over the Christmas period, according to modelling from a new expert advisory group.

Easing restrictions when 70% of NSW adults are fully vaccinated and further relaxing rules at 80% would lead to a “worst-case scenario”, suggests OzSage, a recently formed advisory group of experts in epidemiology, health and economics.

The modelling also suggests that waiting for an 80% vaccination rate – estimated to occur in November – to ease any restrictions would result in greater infections, deaths and peak daily ICU beds needed than if restrictions were eased at 70%. It predicts 689 deaths in NSW by February 1 if restrictions are eased at 70%, compared to 1,004 deaths at 80%.

The finding is at odds with separate modelling from researchers at three universities, which last month suggested that reopening at an 80% vaccination rate for adults would result in 4,000 fewer deaths across Australia than reopening at 70%.

You can read the full report below:




Karl Schubert is asked what it would take for some of those Singapore Airlines flights to come back online before December:


I wouldn’t rule it out. I think that the way that that would happen would be for the government to provide absolute clarity to airlines as to exactly what the working parameters of Australia’s open border looks like. Because that is the clarity that we need.

What we don’t know at the moment is how they are going to treat people who have been vaccinated overseas, as opposed to in Australia. What vaccines they’re going to accept, and also how are they going to verify those and what the responsibility or the expectation is upon the airlines, in terms of being able to verify those customers who are fit to travel.

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Singapore Airlines spokesperson Karl Schubert is outlining the challenges of working with Australia’s strict international arrival caps.

He is asked how many passengers on average are allowed on each flight:


It varies between destinations in Australia, but I think if you were to take the number of 12 up to 25 that is the variance that we have on particular flights and that will vary per day.

Some days have been zeroed out by the government so on some days we’ve been told we just don’t have a cap allocation for you. You can’t carry passengers in and on those days, those days and unfortunately, we do have to obviously cancel our flights and we’ll do everything we can to really accommodate those passengers but as you can imagine, there is limited availability due to the already substantial backlog of people trying to get back into Australia.

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Singapore Airlines to cancel two Australian flights a week until at least 2022

OK, we are getting a bit more information on Singapore airlines cancelling dozens of flights into Australia through to the end of the year.

Company representative Karl Schubert tells ABC radio that despite the Australian government promising to open up international travel soon, there still isn’t enough “clarity” and the returned traveller caps are still too restrictive:


We just don’t have the clarity, for that we need to have, I guess the confidence to operate.

We understand that the government has excellent intentions, and we are here to fully support reopening to Australia safely so that we can get more Australians home but unfortunately, as it stand,s the operating environment is one that is incredibly challenging.

We have no clarity on the removal of international arrival caps, throughout that October to December period, so we’ve had to make the very difficult decision that we simply can’t operate the two additional flights that we were hoping to do into Sydney.

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South Australia is expanding its home quarantine trial to include returning overseas travellers for the first time.

The first round will involve 90 ADF personnel returning from “low-risk countries”.

Political Alert
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SA Home Quarantine Trial for international arrivals commences this week @marshall_steven #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/mBAeJu8fm4


September 14, 2021

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Foreign airlines won’t be able to ramp up operations to meet the mass reopening of international travel into Sydney when 80% vaccination is reached because they will need several months to recall laid-off staff and retrieve planes that have been parked in deserts.

Barry Abrams, the executive director of the Board of Airline Representatives of Australia, told Guardian Australia that airlines continued to be left in the dark about what the new rules and passenger limits would be, leaving them stuck “in a holding pattern”, unable to commence planning for resuming routes.

Passenger allowances are a key factor for airlines in determining the financial viability of their routes, and Abrams warned that carriers that had not flown to the country in more than a year had not yet begun allocating aircraft or staff to Australian routes, nor had they begun renegotiating contracts with ground handling crews and local supply businesses.

You can read the full report below:

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Good morning everyone, it’s hump day so go make yourself a double shot long black and settle in, because we have a big morning of news ahead of us.

It’s Matilda Boseley here, and let’s jump right in.

NSW and Victoria are both on the edge of hitting vaccination milestones. (Not the all-important double dose vaccine targets, but the less significant, but still exciting, single-dose goals.)

Four out of five NSW residents aged over 16 are likely to have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the day – which for the non-mathematically minded means 80%.

This is important because it all but guarantees NSW will meet the reopening target of 80% double-dose coverage in the coming months.

Some 79.5% of the over-16 population in NSW had come forward to get at least one jab by Tuesday, and 47.5% were fully vaccinated.

Melburnians are also on the edge of a (slight) increase in freedoms with Victoria expected to hit its 70% single-dose vaccination target on Friday.

When this occurs they will get an extra hour of outdoor activity and the 5km travel radius will be expanded to 10km. Look it isn’t much, but I’ll take what I can get.

In other news, Singapore Airlines seem to have cancelled dozens of flights in recent days, potentially trapping thousands of Australians overseas. We don’t have that many details get but someone from the airline is expected to speak to the media soon and I’ll bring you all the updates when I can.

With that, why don’t we jump into the day?

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