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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Daily OS. My name

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Speaker 1: is Sam Kozlowski. It is the eighteenth of March. You

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Speaker 1: did it, You got it to Friday, Zara. It's been

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Speaker 1: a massive week for us here at the Daily OS

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure for our listeners. Kick us off with

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Speaker 1: the headlines of the day before we talk about the

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Speaker 1: latest sub variant.

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Speaker 2: US President Joe Biden has called Russian President Vladimir Putin

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Speaker 2: a war criminal as Russia continues to invade Ukraine. Biden

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Speaker 2: made the remark while speaking to reporters in the US,

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Speaker 2: and the Kremlin responded to the comment, saying it's unacceptable

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Speaker 2: and unforgivable.

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Speaker 1: In domestic news yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics told

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Speaker 1: us that the unemployment rate has now fallen to four

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Speaker 1: percent in February. The underemployment rate, which refers to the

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Speaker 1: percentage of people who did not have as much work

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Speaker 1: as they wanted, sat at six point six percent for

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Speaker 1: the month of February. Both figures are the lowest recorded

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Speaker 1: since two thousand and eight.

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Speaker 2: There was a seven point three magnitude earthquake in Japan

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Speaker 2: late Wednesday night, killing two people. The earthquake hit off

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Speaker 2: the coast of Fukushima, the site of the nuclear meltdown

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Speaker 2: in twenty and eleven. After the earthquake, over two million

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Speaker 2: power outages were reported in homes across the Canto region and.

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Speaker 1: Your Friday good News. A world first four D lung scanner,

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Speaker 1: which aims to help medical professionals detect lung related disease

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Speaker 1: earlier as well as more accurately modern chronic respiratory conditions,

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Speaker 1: has been built and unveiled in Australia. Its hopes the

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Speaker 1: scanner will assist those with chronic obstructive palmonary disease, cystic

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Speaker 1: fibrosis and asthma.

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Speaker 2: For many Australians, a sense of normality in routine has

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Speaker 2: returned since the beginning of the pandemic, with all states

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Speaker 2: and territories firmly out of lockdown, no border restrictions, and

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Speaker 2: workplaces working towards going back to full capacity. Things are

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Speaker 2: feeling better than they did six months ago or even

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Speaker 2: three months ago. But despite this sense of normality, COVID

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Speaker 2: nineteen continues to spread and spread quickly throughout Australian communities

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Speaker 2: in every state and territory. You might have noticed several

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Speaker 2: headlines about the rise in COVID nineteen cases, particularly in

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Speaker 2: Australia over the past couple of weeks. And while there

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Speaker 2: are several contributing factors, one is the rise of the

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Speaker 2: BA two variant. Now, nobody wants to talk about COVID

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Speaker 2: less than we do, but it's now been confirmed by

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Speaker 2: the WHO that the omicron subvariant BA two is the

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Speaker 2: most transmissible variant that we've seen since the beginning of

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Speaker 2: the pandemic. Sam take me through what the World Health

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Speaker 2: Organization has actually said on this BA two variant. I

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Speaker 2: feel like we hear about many variants, so why is

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Speaker 2: this one of particular concern.

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Speaker 1: Without freaking everyone out, I am getting some flashbacks to

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Speaker 1: when we first learned about omicron, but let's just continue

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Speaker 1: on hoping for the best case scenario. It was the

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Speaker 1: World Health Organization's COVID nineteen technical lead Maria van Kirkhov.

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Speaker 1: She told us of this news in Interestingly, Van Kirkov

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Speaker 1: confirmed that despite high transmissibility in this variant, she said,

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Speaker 1: we do not see an increase in severity with the

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Speaker 1: BA two variant. She said, However, with huge number of cases,

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Speaker 1: you'll see increased hospitalizations and we have seen this in

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Speaker 1: country after country. So what does that all kind of mean.

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Speaker 1: What it means is that there doesn't seem to be

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Speaker 1: a cause of concern here in terms of severity, but

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Speaker 1: it is expected that case numbers and hospitalizations will skyrocket.

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Speaker 1: And this has been reflective with what we're seeing not

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Speaker 1: only here in Australia but around the whole world. In

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Speaker 1: the past week, the WHO has seen an eight percent

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Speaker 1: increase in the detection of COVID cases with more than

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Speaker 1: eleven million positive test results. You got to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind here that restrictions have now ended in most of

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Speaker 1: the world, including Australia, and WHO is urging us to

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Speaker 1: remember that the virus has not as you and I

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Speaker 1: have talked about, Zara settled down right?

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Speaker 2: And have we known about this variant for a while?

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Speaker 1: Is it new?

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Speaker 2: What's the going at.

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Speaker 1: You might have remembered we reported on this sub variant

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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago. Now as it was spreading,

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Speaker 1: particularly around Europe and India, there were a couple of

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Speaker 1: nicknames given to it. It was called Omicron's sister, Omicron's brother.

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Speaker 1: Everyone seems to have settled on the son of Omicron.

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Speaker 1: The son of Omicron was described as this stealthy variant.

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Speaker 1: It had a generic quirk in it that made it

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Speaker 1: more difficult to identify than the omicron form of the

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Speaker 1: virus on PCR tests. And what that meant in real

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Speaker 1: life was that people were doing PCR tests returning a

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Speaker 1: negative result when they in fact had the son of omicron,

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Speaker 1: and they were then spreading it around their family, friends

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Speaker 1: and workplaces. I guess what we're trying to say here

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Speaker 1: is that this is not new news. We've known about

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Speaker 1: this variant for a while. We've seen a spike in

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Speaker 1: cases in Denmark. More recently, even in China, a country

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Speaker 1: that has a zero COVID policy but has seen a

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Speaker 1: significant jump in cases. It's believed that this variant is

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Speaker 1: the culprit driving up numbers.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so that's overseas. Has this new variant played a

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Speaker 2: role in the overall increase of COVID nineteen cases in

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Speaker 2: Australian states and territories.

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Speaker 1: That's why we thought it would be a good idea

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Speaker 1: to talk about it today. We know the WA even

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Speaker 1: with their strict border restrictions up until only the third

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Speaker 1: of March this year, has seen a pretty significant rise

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Speaker 1: in COVID case numbers. Yesterday, WA recorded seven one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty one new cases, which means that there's about

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Speaker 1: thirty one thousand active infections of the virus in the state.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind that only a month ago, prior to

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Speaker 1: borders opening, the state recorded one hundred and seventy seven

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Speaker 1: local cases. It's obviously a pretty big difference, and the

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Speaker 1: state is expected to hit its peak sometime next week.

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Speaker 1: Health authorities have clearly confirmed that they believe the BA

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Speaker 1: two sub variant accounts for about a quarter of omicron

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Speaker 1: cases in WA. We've seen similar spikes, not as severe,

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Speaker 1: but similar spikes in New South Wales. Yesterday the state

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Speaker 1: recorded twenty thousand cases. Last week, New South Wales Health

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Speaker 1: Minister Brad Hazard spoke about his concerns around the variant.

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Speaker 1: Here's a little bit of what he had to say.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's very concerning because we're seeing another subvariant. It's

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Speaker 3: a BA two and BA two appears to be far

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Speaker 3: more transmissible. What we are concerned about as we could

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Speaker 3: see literally a doubling of the numbers of people infected

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Speaker 3: within just a month to six weeks.

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Speaker 1: Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the other states. In Victoria,

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Speaker 1: there's been some detection of the variant in wastewater tests.

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Speaker 1: Earlier this week, COVID Response Commander Jerome weinmar We haven't

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Speaker 1: spoken about his name on the podcast in a little while.

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Speaker 1: He acknowledged the rise in cases and the presence of

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Speaker 1: the new variant. South Australia haven't forgotten about you either.

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Speaker 1: It had one of its highest daily case numbers in

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Speaker 1: total at FOY four hundred and seventy four, and so

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Speaker 1: it's going to be pretty interesting from here to see,

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Speaker 1: especially in the context of an election, how governments play

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Speaker 1: their hand hit. We'll be looking specifically at state governments

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Speaker 1: to see if they'll be re implementing things like capacity

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Speaker 1: measures or border restrictions.

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Speaker 2: I'm interested to know what our audience thinks of this.

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Speaker 2: I know that I am personally quite fatigued when it

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Speaker 2: comes to new COVID nineteen variants, but that's not to

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Speaker 2: dismiss the very real impacts that these waves have on

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Speaker 2: the immune compromised and elderly among us. So it's important

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Speaker 2: to continue to stay safe and to of course get vaccinated.

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Speaker 2: That's all we have time for this week, but thank

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Speaker 2: you for supporting the Daily ODS in all its forms,

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Speaker 2: and if you want to keep up to date over

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Speaker 2: the weekend, follow us on Instagram at the Daily Os.

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Speaker 2: It's where over three hundred and thirty thousand doses get

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Speaker 2: their news every day, and we'd love to have you

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Speaker 2: over there,