Australia

SYDNEY, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A "lab-leak hypothesis" about the origin of COVID-19 is flawed, said Dominic Dwyer, a professor at the University of Sydney, in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald published Tuesday.

The key flaw, he said, is that no evidence shows that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had SARS-CoV-2 before the pandemic.

(Reuters) --- The Australian state of Victoria extended on Wednesday a snap coronavirus lockdown in its capital of Melbourne for a second week, as it scrambles to rein in a highly contagious variant first detected in India, but will ease some curbs elsewhere.

Last Thursday's lockdown in Australia's second most populous state was to have run until Thursday, following the detection of the first locally acquired cases in three months, but infections rose and the number of close contacts reached several thousand.

CANBERRA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government is reconsidering making coronavirus vaccines mandatory for aged care workers.

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) ruled in January that COVID-19 vaccines would not be made compulsory for people working in residential aged care facilities.

However, with Victoria, the country's second-most populous state, thrust back into lockdown after a cluster of COVID-19 cases emerged in state capital Melbourne, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announced that he has asked the panel to reconsider.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the federal government’s draconian power to prevent most citizens from leaving the country so that they don’t bring COVID-19 home.

Australia is alone among developed democracies in preventing its citizens and permanent residents from leaving the country except in “exceptional circumstances” where they can demonstrate a “compelling reason.”

Most Australians have been stranded in their island nation since March 2020 under a government emergency order made under the powerful Biosecurity Act.

SYDNEY, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The Australian scientist on a World Health Organization (WHO) expert team sent to China on a COVID-19 origin-tracing mission defended the team's findings as some reports speculated about the "lab leak" theory and after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered intelligence agencies to carry out extra investigations into the source of the pandemic.

New Delhi, May 26 (PTI) Scientists have developed two new drugs to both prevent the COVID-19 infection, and also treat people who have been exposed to the novel coronavirus so that they do not develop severe disease.

The peptide-based drugs developed by researchers at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia are being tested in hamsters at France's pre-clinical and clinical research facility, IDMIT.

Early promising results, published in the journal Nature Cell Discovery, show the drugs are not toxic, and have few side effects.

(Reuters) --- Australia is sticking to plans to start re-opening to the rest of the world only from the middle of next year, officials said on Sunday, resisting mounting pressure to end the closure of international borders.

In March 2020, Australia closed its borders to non-nationals and non-residents and has since been allowing only limited international arrivals, mainly citizens returning from abroad.

(Reuters) --- Australia carried out its first repatriation flight from India after temporarily banning all travel from the COVID-ravaged country last month, the government said, with 80 passengers arriving in Darwin on Saturday from New Delhi.

Passengers had to show two negative COVID-19 tests before boarding the government-backed Qantas (QAN.AX) flight and were taken upon arrival to a converted mining camp in Howard Springs in the Northern Territory for a two-week quarantine.

Delhi; 14 May 2021 (UMMN): Out of 150 Australians booked on evacuation flight from India, over 40 have been found Covid-19 positive, and another 30 deemed as close contacts. Northern Territory Health officials confirmed that these pasengers could no longer fly back home.

Australian government’s India travel ban expires at midnight on Friday and the flight was due to leave New Delhi on Friday night and arrive in Darwin on Saturday morning.

12 May 2021; MEMO: The Australian government has informed Israel's largest private arms company, Elbit Systems, that its military will stop using its Battle Management System (BMS) from mid-June.