A lockdown of Australia's third-largest city, Brisbane, has been extended until Sunday amid a growing Covid-19 outbreak.
Brisbane and several surrounding municipalities in Queensland state were due to end a three-day lockdown on Tuesday.
The Queensland government announced the extension on Monday after 13 locally acquired infections of the highly contagious Delta variant were detected in the latest 24-hour period.
Australia's largest city, Sydney, and surrounding cities in New South Wales state are in their sixth week of lockdown. The New South Wales government reported 207 new locally acquired infections on Monday.
Meanwhile, defence minister Peter Dutton said he is quarantining at home in Brisbane and would attend Parliament remotely.
He said he has tested negative for Covid-19, but must quarantine because of a virus cluster at his sons' school.
Mr Dutton was infected with the coronavirus in March 2020 during a trip to Washington, DC. He has since been fully vaccinated.
Australian MPs who attend parliament in person face daily saliva tests for Covid-19, and must wear masks and practise social distancing.
Meanwhile, New Zealand's government plans to slightly ease its strict coronavirus border controls to allow migrant workers from the Pacific to harvest crops and wine grapes.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her administration plans to allow some workers from Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu to enter without them going through the usual requirement to spend two weeks in quarantine.
Ms Ardern said details of the plan are still being worked through and she cannot yet say how many workers might be eligible.
She added that the number of such workers currently in New Zealand was about 3,000 short of the 10,000 typically needed for the harvest.
There are no current outbreaks in Samoa, Tonga or Vanuatu, which have reported a total of just seven Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here