Look back on the day's events as they unfolded in the live blog.
Key events
- Western Australia records 12 new local COVID cases
- Queensland records three new COVID deaths
- SA records 1,505 new cases six deaths
- The NT records 812 new cases including 52 which have been added to Sunday's total
- The ACT records 537 new cases and no deaths
- NSW announces before and after school care vouchers for parents
- Tasmania records 504 new cases and no deaths
- Booster shot eligibility reduced to three months after second vaccine dose nationwide
- Victoria records 10,053 new cases and eight deaths
- NSW records 13,026 new cases and 27 deaths
Live updates
By Alexis Moran
Cases, hospitalisations and deaths
If you don't see your state or territory yet, don't worry - these numbers are updated throughout the day.
For a detailed breakdown of cases across the country, check out Charting the Spread.
NSW: 13,026 new cases, 2,779 people in hospital, 185 in ICU, 27 deaths.
VIC: 10,053 new cases, 873 people in hospital, 102 in ICU, 8 deaths.
TAS: 504 new cases, 16 people in hospital, 1 in ICU, 0 deaths.
ACT: 537 new cases, 62 people in hospital, 2 in ICU, 0 deaths.
NT: 812 new cases, 114 people in hospital, 5 in ICU, 0 deaths.
SA: 1,505 new cases, 281 people in hospital, 25 in ICU, 6 deaths.
QLD: 7462 new cases, 744 people in hospital, 46 in ICU, 3 deaths.
WA: 12 new local cases and 10 international cases.
By Nicholas McElroy
That's all from the COVID blog today
As always, thanks for following along. The blog will return tomorrow.
By Nicholas McElroy
With its owner 'too scared' to get jabbed, a Gold Coast eatery shuts for good
By Dominic Cansdale
The owner of Sanctuary Cove's Artichoke restaurant says he's decided to walk away from the business after 10 years because he's "too scared" to get the COVID vaccine and can't get a medical exemption.
Artichoke was forced to close in December and January after it was found to have breached Queensland's vaccine mandate, which Grant Madgwick said had also taken a toll.
"We were thriving, but this killed me — I'm broke," he said.
"They closed a very successful restaurant."
Mr Madgwick, who cited a long-running illness as his reason for not wanting to get the vaccine, said he had been left unable to even "go for a beer".
"No-one will employ me because I'm not double vaxxed and I can't get any exemptions," he said.
By Nicholas McElroy
Study of 10,000 women finds link between job losses in COVID-19 pandemic and domestic violence
By data journalist Catherine Hanrahan
A link between domestic violence and job losses and other economic stressors during the pandemic has been confirmed by a new study.
The online survey of 10,000 Australian women, from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety, ran from February to April 2021.
It showed that when their partners lost work, women were more likely to experience violence for the first time, and for existing violence to escalate.
One in three women (31 per cent) in the survey had been laid off, lost their job or had to take a pay cut or reduce hours, in the first 12 months of the pandemic.
Around twenty-five per cent said their partners had lost work.
One in 10 women had experienced physical violence from a current or former partner, eight per cent had experienced sexual violence, and 32 per cent had experienced emotionally abusive, harassing and controlling behaviours.
For women who experienced partner violence for the first time, those whose partner did not work in the previous year, or had lost work, were more than twice as likely to experience physical violence as women whose partners' job did not change.
Check out the full story and a list of family and domestic violence support services here
By Nicholas McElroy
GoFundMe freezes $160,000 until organisers of Convoy to Canberra protests detail spending plan
GoFundMe has frozen access to more than $160,000 in funds raised by supporters of a convoy of trucks and cars converging on Canberra to protest COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures.
After vehicles began arriving in the national capital this morning, Australian Federal Police were forced to defend the front doors of Parliament House, as hundreds of people who were part of the larger protest moved towards the public entrance.
The Convoy to Canberra rally is being led by groups who are against mandatory vaccinations and includes the so-called Sovereign Citizens movement, with many trucks, vans and cars travelling thousands of kilometres from interstate to join the rally.
Many demonstrators were seen waving the Australian and red ensign flags upside down, which is widely seen as a signal of distress, while some were holding signs with the message "Make Australia Great Again".
Members of the crowd yelled "freedom" and "sack them all" and also belted out renditions of Amazing Grace and John Farnham's You're the Voice.
A Last Post was also played.
Parliament is not sitting until next week, but the demonstrators demanded a "representative" come and address the people who had travelled to be in Canberra and took to social media to declare the protests would take place over several days.
The protest mirrors similar protests overseas, including a convoy of thousands of Canadian truckers and other protesters who converged on Ottawa over the weekend to protest against the government's vaccine mandate.
But a crowdfunding effort by the demonstrators has run into trouble, with the funding website GoFundMe freezing access to money.
By Nicholas McElroy
An after school report from Victoria
Our kids had a pretty good “Covid normal” day back at school today... Our school still hasn’t received or distributed the rapid antigen tests yet so really hoping there are no cases already floating around the school!
-Melbourne mum
By Nicholas McElroy
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tests negative to COVID
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she has tested negative for the coronavirus after coming into close contact with an infected person on a commercial flight.
Ms Ardern had been isolating since late Saturday after the January 22 exposure first came to light.
She intends to continuing isolating through Tuesday to complete a 10-day health requirement. She has had no symptoms.
The exposure occurred on a flight from the town of Kerikeri to New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. Health officials listed a dozen flights as exposure events late Saturday, possibly indicating infections among flight crews.
Ms Ardern and Governor-General Cindy Kiro, who is also isolating while awaiting a second test, were in the Northland region to do some filming ahead of New Zealand's national day, Waitangi Day, on February 6.
New Zealand has managed to stamp out or contain the virus for much of the pandemic, and has reported just 52 virus deaths among its population of 5 million.
But an outbreak of the omicron variant is starting to take hold and is expected to rapidly grow over the coming weeks.
Ms Ardern's isolation comes as Parliament is on summer break. She will chair a Cabinet meeting remotely on Tuesday.
By Nicholas McElroy
Casey Briggs looks at the vaccine rollout among children
A key measure to ensuring the return to school is safe is the children's vaccine rollout. For the latest, ABC data analyst Casey Briggs looks at the numbers.
By Nicholas McElroy
Spotify to add advisories to podcasts discussing COVID-19
Spotify says it will add COVID content advisories before podcasts discussing the virus, following protests of Spotify kicked off by Neil Young.
In a post Sunday, Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek laid out more transparent platform rules given the backlash stirred by Young, who on had his music removed from Spotify after the tech giant declined to get rid of episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, which has been criticised for spreading virus misinformation.
"Personally, there are plenty of individuals and views on Spotify that I disagree with strongly," wrote Ek.
"It is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them."
Ek said that the advisories will link to Spotify's fact-based COVID-19 hub in what he described as a "new effort to combat misinformation."
It will roll out in the coming days, Ek said. He did not specifically reference Rogan or Young.
Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who have signed a multi-year deal to produce and host podcasts for Spotify under their production company Archewell Audio, urged Spotify to tame virus misinformation.
"Last April, our co-founders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all too real consequences of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform," an Archewell spokesperson said in a statement.
"We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis. We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does."
AP
By Nicholas McElroy
Australian Olympian returns negative COVID test after initial positive scare
Australian curler Tahli Gill tests negative to COVID twice after returning initial positive result.
By Nicholas McElroy
School's back for tens of thousands of students, but could Omicron derail plans?
After two years of uncertainty, states and territories are hoping mask mandates and routine rapid antigen testing will keep students in the classrooms.
But after a slow start to the children's vaccine rollout, and reports of test shortages, there are no guarantees.
By Nicholas McElroy
Australian COVID vaccination coverage
Australian vaccine coverage (0+ population):
- First dose: 84.3%
- Second dose: 78.6%
- Third dose: 30.2%
- Approximately 33.9% of the population is eligible for a third shot but yet to receive it
By Nicholas McElroy
Here is the Western Australia COVID snapshot
More from WA Health:
WA Health is reporting 12 new local cases and 10 travel related cases up until 8pm last night.
Of the 12 new local cases all are linked to existing clusters, including seven linked to the nightclub cluster.
All cases are now in quarantine and public health continues to investigate and monitor them.
Some of today’s cases have been infectious in the community. Contact tracers are working with these cases to determine potential public exposure sites which will be uploaded to the HealthyWA website when confirmed.
Today’s figures bring the State’s total number of active COVID-19 cases to 155. Of these, 10 are in hotel quarantine, 144 are in self-quarantine and one is in hospital.
WA has recorded 1527 cases since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with 1357 recovering from the virus.
By Nicholas McElroy
Western Australia records 12 new local COVID cases
Western Australia has recorded 12 new local COVID-19 cases.
All 12 are linked to existing clusters, including seven linked to the nightclub cluster.
Some of the cases were infectious in the community, and contact tracers are working to determine potential public exposure sites.
10 travel-related cases were also recorded.
One previously reported case is now out of ICU.
By Nicholas McElroy
COVID cases recorded at WA mine sites as Omicron outbreak spreads
Around 70 people are isolating and waiting for test results after a worker at a BHP mining camp in WA's north tested positive to COVID-19.
The contractor was working in BHP's rail team.
They recorded a negative rapid antigen test before flying to the Yandi iron ore mine on Tuesday last week, but started experiencing symptoms on Sunday and returned a positive PCR test at an accommodation village.
A spokesperson said the company was working with the WA Health Department to conduct further contact tracing, and was undertaking deep cleaning across the impacted sites.
"The person is isolating at an accommodation village in line with government requirements, and being provided with care and support while they await the results of further testing," the BHP spokesperson said.
By Nicholas McElroy
Victorian COVID-19 hospitalisations likely at peak, CHO Sutton says
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has told a parliamentary inquiry he believes the state has reached its peak of COVID-19 hospitalisations.
"I think we are likely to be at a peak now," Professor Sutton told parliament's new pandemic oversight committee.
"I think it is unlikely to go above 1,500 hospitalisations and I think it's probably already peaked.
"I think that peak will look bumpy, it will have up and down days but it won't significantly increase from the position we are in right now."
Professor Sutton is appearing before parliament's new pandemic oversight committee for the first time. It was set up as part of the state's new pandemic specific laws.
There are currently 873 people in hospital with the virus in Victoria, and hospitalisations have been dropping steadily over the past week.
By Nicholas McElroy
Queensland CHO outlines the latest COVID deaths
The deaths were people aged in their 60s, 80s and 80s.
Of the three, two had two doses of a COVID vaccine and one had three doses of the vaccine, CHO Dr John Gerrard said.
"I probably wouldn't read too much into a single of reduced data, I think we need to look into a broader trend in terms of deaths," Dr Gerrard said.
"Our thoughts are very much with their families."
By Nicholas McElroy
Queensland records three new COVID deaths
Queensland has recorded three COVID deaths overnight.
Of the deaths, one person was in their 60s, one in their 80s and one in their 90s.
There are 744 people in hospital with 46 people being treated in intensive care units.
The death numbers are down on recent days and the Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard says it’s too early to say it’s a downward trend.
There were 7462 new, known cases recorded overnight.
By Alexis Moran
Victoria's CHO tells a parliamentary inquiry the state has reached its peak of COVID-19 hospitalisations
Reporting by state political reporter Bridget Rollason
Professor Brett Sutton is appearing before parliament's new pandemic oversight committee for the first time, which was set up as part of the state's new pandemic-specific laws.
There are currently 889 people in hospital with the virus, which is has been dropping steadily over the past week.
Professor Sutton says he doesn't believe there will be a significant increase in COVID-19 hospitalisations.
"I think it is unlikely to go above 1,500 hospitalities and I think it's probably already peaked," Professor Sutton said.
"I think that peak will look bumpy, it will have up and down days but it won't significantly increase from the position we are in right now."
