Boom Radio: Morning News Update
Callan Western
Thursday 9 April 2020
10:00am
Bunbury ‘cougher’ charged with assault
A 23-year-old man has been charged with assault after being accused of deliberately coughing on four nurses at Bunbury Regional Hospital on Tuesday.
According to Police the man had been ordered to isolate in a room to undergo tests at the hospital, after presenting himself to the emergency department with a respiratory illness.
Allegedly after waiting, the man became agitated and approached a nursing station before deliberately coughing and sneezing on the four different nurses.
The man faced Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday, and will be returning to Bunbury Magistrates Court today.
Hunt: Deliberate transmission could equal jail time
Health Minister Greg Hunt reminded the public of the consequences for deliberately passing on Covid19 on Wednesday afternoon.
“The deliberate transmission of COVID-19 is an offence under the general criminal laws which apply in every state and territory,” Hunt said.
This comes after news of some “Very troubling cases” of people threatening doctors and nurses through coughing on them.
“The most serious of these offences may carry maximum penalties up to imprisonment for life, if somebody was to take a step which led to the death
of a healthcare worker if it were a deliberate transmission,” he said.
COVID19 vaccine undergoes initial tests
A vaccine for COVID-19 is about to be tested on the virus for the first time after another death in South Australia has brought our total death toll to 51.
An agreement between the University of Queensland (UQLD) and Dutch company Viroclinics Xplore means research teams can now carry out initial studies.
“These protection studies must be done in specialist biosecurity facilities as they use the live virus, and our longstanding partnership with Viroclinics Xplore gives us the confidence that this can be achieved as quickly as possible,” said UQLD Vaccine Program leader, Dr Keith Chappell.
China eases lockdown restrictions
Two months after it went into lockdown China has decided to finally ease the restrictions in Wuhan after the capital of the Hubei province reported that there had only been 3 new confirmed infections in the last 21 days.
China had sealed off Wuhan, in late January to stop the spread of the virus, after more than 50,000 in Wuhan had caught it, and more 2500 of them had died from it.
It has been expected that around 55,000 people are leaving Wuhan by train, and more than 10,000 have supposedly left by plane as flights have resumed at the Wuhan airport.
Flights to Beijing and international locations haven’t been restored.
