LATEST COVID-19 DEVELOPMENTS:
* A COVID-19 cluster in Melbourne’s north has grown to nine cases as city residents return to mandatory indoor masks and beefed up gathering restrictions.
* Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the outbreak was not out of control as yet, with 84 of 164 primary close contacts testing negative so far.
* A report into how the Victorian man at the centre of the cluster caught the virus while in hotel quarantine in Adelaide will be made public soon.
* The outbreak has renewed criticism of the federal government’s staggered vaccine roll out, with state and territory governments are starting to go their own way. NSW has thrown the doors open to people aged between 40 and 49, while South Australia has announced people from the age of 16 in regional areas are now eligible for the vaccine.
* A record number of people in NSW stepped up to get vaccinated on Monday.
* Meanwhile, the Queensland government says plans for a regional quarantine camp near Toowoomba that have been criticised as lacking detail by the federal government cannot be released publicly because they are still being considered by state cabinet.
* Greens Senator Nick McKim has accused the federal government of putting the rich and famous – movie stars, tennis players, business people – ahead of vulnerable families stranded overseas.
AUSTRALIAN VACCINATION NUMBERS:
* There were 3,690,622 doses administered in the national COVID-19 vaccination rollout up to Monday, including 77,569 in the previous 24 hours.
* Of the total, 2,391,582 have been administered by the Commonwealth (an increase of 53,279 in the previous 24 hours).
* 2,061,522 have been issued in primary care (+49,336) and 330,060 in aged and disability facilities (+3943).
* 1,299,040 have been administered by the states and territories, including 24,290 in the previous 24 hours.
* 369,504 have been administered in Victoria, 357,917 in NSW (+12,524), 193,002 in Queensland (+5485), 151,723 in Western Australia (+3220), 94,361 in South Australia (+1474), 59,667 in Tasmania (+1195), 44,514 in the ACT (+884) and 28,352 in the NT (+499).
AUSTRALIAN CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:
* Australia reported eight new locally acquired virus cases on Monday, all in Victoria. Four cases were first revealed on Sunday night.
* There were five new overseas-acquired cases in hotel quarantine; two in Queensland, two in NSW and one in SA.
* The national death toll is 910: Victoria 820, NSW 56, Tasmania 13, WA 9, Queensland 7, SA 4, ACT 3 (Two Queensland residents who died in NSW have been included in the official tolls of both states).
GLOBAL CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:
* Cases: at least 167,328,000
* Deaths: at least 3,473,000
* Vaccine doses administered: at least 1,681,052,000
Data current as of 1730 AEST on May 25, taking in federal and state/territory government updates and Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre figures.
Australian Associated Press