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Speaker 1: Good morning everybody. Welcome to another week of the Daily OS.

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Speaker 1: It's the twenty ninth of November. Happy Unity Day in Vanuatu.

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Speaker 1: A huge weekend of news and I have a feeling

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Speaker 1: it's not going to slow down for many days yet.

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Speaker 1: Of course, the big topic this morning is the new

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Speaker 1: variant of COVID nineteen. Zara. We're going to break it

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Speaker 1: down and do more of a deep dive at the

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Speaker 1: back end of the episode. What did we find out yesterday?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it just felt like we were getting over this,

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Speaker 2: but here we are again. Yesterday, New South Wales Health

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Speaker 2: confirmed that two overseas travelers who tested positive to COVID

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Speaker 2: nineteen on Saturday have been confirmed to be infected with

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Speaker 2: a new omicron variant that sounds like a transformer. Both

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Speaker 2: passengers arrived from Southern Africa on Saturday evening and went

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Speaker 2: straight into hotel quarantine, so they weren't around the community

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Speaker 2: at all. Around two hundred and sixty passengers and crew

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Speaker 2: on the flight from Doha are now considered close contacts.

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Speaker 1: In line with the new variant. Over the weekend, the

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Speaker 1: New South Wales, Victorian AI and South Australian governments announced

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Speaker 1: changes for international arrivals. Anyone arriving from overseas from any

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Speaker 1: country into New South Wales or Victoria is now required

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Speaker 1: to self isolate for seventy two hours after landing or

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Speaker 1: until eleven fifty nine pm on the thirtieth and November.

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Speaker 1: In the Act. In South Australia, international arrivals will have

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Speaker 1: to quarantine as directed for fourteen days after their arrival.

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Speaker 2: The federal government has announced new legislation that would hold

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Speaker 2: social media companies responsible for harmful or defamatory posts by

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Speaker 2: online trolls. We'd heard a fair bit about this legislation,

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Speaker 2: but both the Prime Minister and Michaylia Cash, the Attorney General,

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Speaker 2: taught us a bit more yesterday. So the proposed legislation,

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Speaker 2: that would still obviously need to pass Parliament, would reverse

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Speaker 2: the High Court's decision earlier this year that news publishers

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Speaker 2: are to be held responsible for harmful comments made in

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Speaker 2: their comments section.

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Speaker 1: And so much needed good news to start off your week.

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Speaker 1: A British Man has become the first patient the world

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Speaker 1: to be fitted with a three D printed eye. Morefield's

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Speaker 1: Eye Hospital said in the press release. The prosthetic is

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Speaker 1: the first fully digital prosthetic eye created for a patient.

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Speaker 1: The new technology will have usual weight times for prosthetic eyes,

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Speaker 1: and it's much cheaper than other options. It also looks

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Speaker 1: more realistic than other prosthetics. So Zarah, there's a few

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Speaker 1: ways to approach this story. The first way is to

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Speaker 1: look at it through the lens of your trip overseas

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Speaker 1: in the middle of next year and try and work

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Speaker 1: out whether that's going ahead or not.

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Speaker 2: The second way we can look at it is to

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Speaker 2: just cry and not look at anything. What's the third way.

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Speaker 1: I think we need to give it a different name.

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Speaker 1: The name is not good branding.

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Speaker 2: It's ridiculous. But interestingly, it did come out over the

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Speaker 2: weekend that they had skipped over Chi as a letter

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Speaker 2: in the Greek alphabet because it was often a popular surname.

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Speaker 1: But before we go into all of those hypotheticals, I

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Speaker 1: think it's best if we probably just cover off what

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Speaker 1: exactly we know about this variant, so Zara, you and

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Speaker 1: I heard a little bit about it towards the back

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Speaker 1: end of last week, and then the Who's announcement that

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Speaker 1: it is a variant of concern, which happens early Saturday

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Speaker 1: morning our time, was really the moment where it turned

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Speaker 1: from a minor story on the periphery of the news

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Speaker 1: to the central focus of pretty much every government in

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Speaker 1: the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, just to run our audience through what that process

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Speaker 2: looks like for a news organization. One of our journalists

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Speaker 2: spoke to me on Friday about it, and at that

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Speaker 2: time there was something like twenty cases that are been

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Speaker 2: confirmed in South Africa and there was quite a bit

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Speaker 2: of hype on Twitter and not much else elsewhere. We

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Speaker 2: dismissed it as not wanting to, you know, lean into

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Speaker 2: that scare mongering that we or fear mongering that we've

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Speaker 2: seen throughout COVID, So we said, let's wait, let's see

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Speaker 2: what happens. Then the next day it all blows up

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Speaker 2: and here we are and it's the only thing we're

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Speaker 2: talking about. So it's really interesting to see how the

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Speaker 2: news develops, even from day to day during a period

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Speaker 2: like this.

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Speaker 1: But you're right in terms of how scary this news

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Speaker 1: can be, and we're really thinking about the ways to

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Speaker 1: convey this information without totally freaking everybody out. Last night,

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Speaker 1: when New South Wales Health announced that passengers had arrived

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Speaker 1: with the variant in Sydney, it was really important to

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Speaker 1: identify that those passengers had gone straight into isolation so

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Speaker 1: that people didn't misunderstand that there was suddenly this variant

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Speaker 1: in the community. Of course, there are other people on

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Speaker 1: the plane that now need to be tested and monitored,

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Speaker 1: but it's important to take everything with kind of that perspective.

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Speaker 2: So we're going through that lens. Why don't we start

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Speaker 2: with a more positive side of things. We know that

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Speaker 2: people who have contracted the omicron variant of COVID nineteen

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Speaker 2: are actually experiencing mild symptoms. A doctor in South Africa

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Speaker 2: who chairs the South African Medical Association. So far, she's

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Speaker 2: had two dozen patients who have tested positive and showed

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Speaker 2: symptoms of the new variant, and she said it presents

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Speaker 2: mild disease, with symptoms being sow muscles and tiredness from

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Speaker 2: a day or two not feeling well. So far, we've

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Speaker 2: detected that those infected don't suffer the loss of taste

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Speaker 2: or smell. They might have a slight cough, and there

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Speaker 2: are no prominent symptoms, so that's some better news to

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Speaker 2: look at.

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Speaker 1: The not so good news, of course, is the fact

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Speaker 1: that it is much more infectious than the delta strain

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Speaker 1: or any other strains of COVID nineteen, and that's really

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Speaker 1: what's getting governments concerned. So on the virus, the virus

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Speaker 1: has spike proteins, and what we've seen with this new

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Speaker 1: strain is mutations on those spike proteins, and there's more

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Speaker 1: than thirty mutations on the spike proteins that have been identified.

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Speaker 1: And those spikes are the part of the virus that

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Speaker 1: binds to a human cell, so they're the parts that

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Speaker 1: actually infect us with the disease. This means that omichron

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Speaker 1: could be more transmissible, but also have more mechanisms to

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Speaker 1: evade the immunity that we've been given by the vaccines

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Speaker 1: or by prior COVID infections. Speaking of vaccines, we had

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Speaker 1: a statement released from FISA over the weekend that said

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Speaker 1: that they need about one hundred days to work on

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Speaker 1: a new formula for the vaccine that can then pass

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Speaker 1: through the regularity approval. And it's going to be a

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Speaker 1: really interesting process to see how quickly, knowing the severity

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Speaker 1: of the implications of what a news strain could mean

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Speaker 1: for the world, how quickly the pharmaceutical companies can jump

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Speaker 1: on this. President Biden on Saturday called for there to

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Speaker 1: be more widespread vaccine coverage in developing nations, and this

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Speaker 1: is seen as a really important wake up call for

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Speaker 1: the world. Despite highly vaccinated countries like Australia seemingly moving

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Speaker 1: out of the COVID era, the mutations that can occur

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Speaker 1: in countries with low vaccine coverage are still going to

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Speaker 1: affect us until really the majority of the world is vaccinated.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting Zara to bring it into

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Speaker 1: Australian politics, to look at the speed at which the

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Speaker 1: government reacted to the announcement. There was obviously a fair

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Speaker 1: bit of criticism around the speed at which they reacted

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Speaker 1: to the Delta outbreak, so it was clear that they

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Speaker 1: wanted to jump on the restrictions as soon as possible.

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Speaker 1: There's been nine countries that have been named as Southern

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Speaker 1: African Countries of concern. It does look to me like

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Speaker 1: they're trying to avoid singling out any one country. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we know that the virus was first detected in South Africa,

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Speaker 1: but I think we're really trying to move away from

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Speaker 1: calling at things like the South African strain or any

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Speaker 1: of those types of terms. We found that before Delta

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Speaker 1: was Delta, and it was the Indians strain that it

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Speaker 1: could attract a lot of really unhealthy dialogue around nations

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Speaker 1: in the world that have done really nothing wrong and

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Speaker 1: mutations of the virus they are outside of their control.

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Speaker 2: So it's Monday morning. Where are we at.

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Speaker 1: As we say at the top of the podcast, states

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Speaker 1: and territories are making calls relatively quickly on what to

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Speaker 1: do with their borders. We haven't had any signs that

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Speaker 1: travel restrictions are going to be placed from anyone coming

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Speaker 1: into Australia from countries not in Southern Africa. However, it's

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Speaker 1: worth considering the fact that there's been cases identified in

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong, in Belgium and Israel, in Turkey and more

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Speaker 1: as this day goes on and week goes on, so

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Speaker 1: those restrictions are going to be very fluid. I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be surprised if we heard from the Health Minister Greg

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Speaker 1: Hunt and the Prime Minister Scott Morris today. We heard

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Speaker 1: from Greg Hunt on both Saturday and Sunday, and he

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Speaker 1: seems to be the kind of key point of contact

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Speaker 1: for the Australian people in thinking about the new restrictions.

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Speaker 2: So where we're at is that if you are attempting

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Speaker 2: to enter Australia from any of those Southern African nations

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Speaker 2: that are listed by the federal government, you'll be required

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Speaker 2: to go into fourteen days of hotel quarantine. If you're

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Speaker 2: already in the country but have been in any of

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Speaker 2: those places for the last fourteen days, you'll be required

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Speaker 2: to self isolate for fourteen days from the day that

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Speaker 2: you entered the state or the country in New South

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Speaker 2: Wales or Victoria. If you are arriving from anywhere in

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Speaker 2: the world that is outside of Australia, you are required

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Speaker 2: to self isolate for seventy two hours. If you're arriving

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Speaker 2: into the Act, no matter when you arrive, you have

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Speaker 2: to isolate until eleven fifty nine on the thirtieth of November,

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Speaker 2: And if you're arriving into South Australia, you will have

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Speaker 2: to quarantine as directed a direct quote from them, for

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Speaker 2: fourteen days after arrival.

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Speaker 1: And I guess the last thing to say before we

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Speaker 1: wrap up is a reminder to look after yourself, especially

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Speaker 1: with your ingestion of news coverage around this topic throughout

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Speaker 1: the week. There's going to be a lot of it.

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Speaker 1: It's going to be a very fast paced and quickly

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Speaker 1: changing story. Look after yourselves, make sure that you're reading

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Speaker 1: responsible news coverage and not getting too freaked out. Appropriately concerned,

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Speaker 1: of course, but our mental health is so important. That's

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Speaker 1: all we've got time for this morning. We will be

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Speaker 1: back tomorrow morning with I am sure some new updates

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Speaker 1: on the variant. Until then, have a fantastic day, look

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Speaker 1: after yourselves, and we'll speak to you tomorrow