Good evening, it’s Tuesday, December 28. Here’s what’s been happening today.
One thing to know right now: The Aussies have won the Ashes
- Today was only day three of the third Ashes Test, but the five-game series was put to bed before lunchtime
- Debutant Scott Boland became a legend this morning, dismissing England’s Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson to finish his second Test innings with figures of 6-7 from four overs — to put that into context, ABC Sport’s Dean Bilton summed it up as “perhaps the greatest Ashes bloodbath in the series’ storied history“
- Boland, the second Indigenous Australian man to play Test cricket, was named player of the match and presented with the Johnny Mullagh Medal, which is named after the great leader of the 1868 tour of Indigenous players to England
- “I learnt about the 1868 tour and what went on when I was 17, and it makes me and my family so proud to win this award,” Boland said
- The next match will held in Sydney on January 5, giving England a break to regroup but, geez, it’s going to take a lot for the English side to come back from this one
Another thing we heard a lot about today: COVID-19
What a surprise! Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of today’s figures:
- The ACT: 252 new COVID-19 cases. Of Canberra’s 908 active cases, just three are in hospital and none are in intensive care
- NSW: 6,062 new cases and one death. There are 557 people in hospital with the virus, including 60 in intensive care
- The NT: 16 new COVID-19 cases. There are 20 people in hospital, one of them in intensive care
- Queensland: 1,158 new cases. There are currently six people in hospital with the virus, none in intensive care
- SA: 995 new COVID-19 cases. There are 36 people in hospital with the virus, five of those in intensive care
- Tasmania: 43 new cases. One case is in hospital, but was admitted for an unrelated medical condition
- Victoria: 2,738 new cases and four deaths. There are 361 patients with active infections in hospital, including 69 in intensive care
- WA: No new cases, but 46 close contacts and 243 casual contacts linked to the Perth outbreak are yet to be tested.
It’s also looking very much like the Omicron variant has less severe impacts than the Delta strain.
ABC analyst Casey Briggs says recent data from NSW — where it’s estimated a big portion of the cases are Omircon — showed the percentage of active cases in hospital now is lower than what we saw during the Delta wave.
“We saw about 10 per cent of active cases in NSW at the peak of that Delta wave in October in hospital,” he said.
“But, ever since then, it’s been travelling downward until this Omicron wave has begun and we are really down to about a 1 per cent of people who are infected going to hospital, give or take.”
And he pointed out that most of the people in intensive care in NSW have the Delta strain, not Omicron.
Briggs said the data suggested that you’re “less likely to [have] a very serious effect from this virus if you get Omicron than if you had got Delta”.
News you might have missed
Let’s get you up to speed.
- Queensland has ditched its rule requiring people from COVID hotspots to get tested for COVID-19 on day five of their time in the state. But the rule requiring them to get tested before entering the state remains
- A 19-year-old man who allegedly ignored a positive COVID-19 test result and kept clubbing at an Adelaide CBD nightspot has been charged by police
- A Sydney pathology lab that prematurely told almost 1,000 people their COVID tests were negative has confirmed 486 of those results were positive
- A 14-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl were found 22 hours after going missing in bushland near Mudgee, in central western NSW. The brother and sister set off for a short bushwalk yesterday, but didn’t return to their family’s campsite by nightfall.
The news Australia is searching for
- Patty Mills: The Aussie basketballer scored 18 points in the Brooklyn Nets’ win over the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA. Mills hit six three-pointers, which is very impressive, but on Christmas Day he managed to sink eight three-pointers
- David Beckham: A bunch of fans are gawking at the British football star’s feet in his family Christmas photo. Some reckon he’s standing on his tippy toes, some reckon he’s wearing shoes with a bit of heel and some people (not naming names or anything) are too focused on former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham’s dress to care:
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One more thing: Meet this white emu who lives like a poddy calf and acts like a guard dog
As a young chick who looked different to her brothers and sisters, Eddie was left for dead by her father.
So the Hoare family, who run a cattle property in central Queensland, took her in.
Cathy Hoare says Eddie has a lot of personality.
“I raised her with 10 chickens and she outgrew those,” she said.
“Then we let her out around our house in the paddock and she befriended the poddies.
“She loves swimming, playing in the mud, running around with the poddies, trying to buck up with the poddies, but emu legs don’t go backward so she ends up in a big mess.”
And she’s very protective of her family.
“If there’s anything strange that comes around, she certainly lets us know,” Ms Hoare said.
“Sometimes dingo pups come up and she’ll make an awful noise. She chases snakes.”
Ecological researcher Julia Ryeland said that, in most cases, wildlife should not be fed because it stops them from foraging for natural food.
“But the chances are that this particular emu may have not survived if it was getting left behind by the dad and it may have been taken by a predator if it hadn’t been fed,” Dr Ryeland said.
That’s enough for now
But we’ll be back tomorrow to do it all again!
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