The Loop: Authorities rush to slow new COVID-19 wave, unemployment drops again, and look out for the biggest supermoon of the year

Howdy. It's Thursday, July 14, and you're reading The Loop, a quick wrap-up of today's news.

One thing to know: The unemployment rate has dropped again

Australia's latest employment figures arrived today. Here are the main things they showed:

• Australia's official unemployment rate has dropped to 3.5 per cent (down from 3.9 per cent in the previous three months)
• An estimated 88,400 jobs were added to the economy last month
• The fall in unemployment happened despite another increase in the number of people looking for work, with the participation rate rising to a record high of 66.8 per cent

• Even with more jobseekers, there were almost as many vacant positions (480,000 in May) as people still looking for work (494,000 in June)

Today we heard a lot about the new wave of COVID-19 cases

Cases of COVID-19 are rising across Australia and authorities are bracing for a lot more in the coming weeks, as the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants continue to circulate widely.

Many health officials are predicting the next peak will happen in the next few weeks, and hospitals are already treating hundreds of people with the virus.

Here are some of the key developments we heard about today:

• Pressure is mounting on the federal government to reinstate the pandemic leave disaster payment, amid warnings that millions will contract COVID-19 in the weeks ahead
• The Federal Aged Care Minister said the government had come up with a plan to protect aged care residents from the latest wave, including a push for fourth vaccine doses and antivirals
• Doctors are urging anyone who returns a negative result on a RAT but still has COVID-19 symptoms to get a PCR test due to reports of false negatives on RATs

There have also been some developments in the states and territories, such as:

• In New South Wales authorities say while the flu season has peaked, the worst of the COVID wave is yet to come
• Tasmania is topping the list for new COVID-19 cases per capita
• In Queensland, more than 160 residential aged care facilities are dealing with active outbreaks

For more on where the COVID-19 situation stands in your jurisdiction, have a read here:

News you might have missed

• Illawarra man Ljube Velevski, who killed his wife and three daughters almost 30 years ago, will leave prison today having served the maximum term of 25 years. NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman said the 57-year-old had undergone a high-risk offender assessment and the state had no avenue to keep him behind bars

Ljube Velevski was convicted of four counts of murder after a trial in 1997. (ABC TV)

• Amid ongoing unrest over Sri Lanka's economic crisis, and protesters storming his office demanding his resignation, the country's Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has told the military to do "whatever is necessary to restore order". He's been appointed acting president by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled to the Maldives on Wednesday

Sri Lankan protesters storm the Prime Minister's office.

Here's what Australia has been searching for online

• Penny Mordaunt. She is Britain's Trade Minister and has come second in a secret ballot of Conservative politicians in the race to replace UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The frontrunner is still former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak. Ms Mordaunt said voters were "fed up" with the Conservative Party not delivering on its promises and playing "divisive politics"

Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt secured 67 votes to come in second place. (AP: PA/Stefan Rousseau)

• Uvalde shooting. There are still a lot of people searching for the latest confronting footage of May's school shooting in the Texas city of Uvalde, which was released yesterday. There's been a renewed wave of anger in the US since the release of the surveillance footage, which shows police milling in the hallway of Robb Elementary School while a gunman continues firing inside a classroom where 19 children and two teachers were killed

One more thing: There's still a chance to see the Buck supermoon

The biggest supermoon of the year — known as the Buck supermoon — is hanging around at the moment, and there's still time to catch it.

NASA says the Buck moon will appear until early Friday morning.

It will look its largest during moonrise, so the best time to view it will be any time after sunset today (Thursday).

If you want to know more, head here to find out why it's called the Buck, what makes it a supermoon and whether it's all just an illusion.

July's 'Buck' supermoon will look bigger and brighter than ever. (AP: Sebastian Gollnow)

You're up to date!

Enjoy the supermoon, but don't forget the OG.

ABC/wires