Australia Covid news live update: testing centre closures in NSW, Vic and Qld cause chaos; more than 47,000 new cases reported nationwide | Australia news

Finance minister Simon Birmingham is talking in Adelaide now.

He says RATs are free if you need a clear reason.

“We are working with states and territories to make rapid antigen tests freely available to those who need them in those circumstances.”

He is asked why RATs are $30 here when they are free in the UK and $4 in Thailand.

“We are making sure we have more supply coming into the country in the coming weeks. we expect to see more than 100 million kits sourced for Australians to be able to use.

“We’re also working through the process of ensuring that for a concessional cardholder, there are subsidies and discounts available to support their access.

“Most importantly testing remains free for those who need it.”

Wendy Harmer posted this video of the Collaroy sea wall on Twitter earlier.

As some of you might remember, we wrote about this last year – beachfront residents paid $300,000 each for the wall, but other locals worried it would eat the beach up.

Royce Kurmelovs had the story:

Rod Sims, the chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has just been speaking in Sydney about the cost of rapid antigen tests.

Guardian Australia’s Ben Butler is about to bring you more info on it, but below is the statement form the ACCC: “Won’t be shy to name and shame.”

The Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, says there are 75 new cases in the NT.

The NT is dropping its requirement to get a PCR test before interstate travellers arrive.

“If you’re trying to find a PCR test, if you’re looking for a PCR test, stop. We’ll sort it out when you get here,” Gunner said.

The Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, will provide a Covid-19 update any minute now.

Professional Pharmacists Australia, which represents employee pharmacists, today joined the growing chorus of voices asking the federal government to make rapid antigen tests free and available for all Australians.

The CEO of Professional Pharmacists Australia, Jill McCabe, said “we should be protecting the health and safety of all workers and their families, not just those who can afford to buy the tests”:

We represent the vast majority of pharmacists in Australia – employee pharmacists – and we’re calling on the federal government to act urgently and provide the tests free to all given the surge in cases and the change in testing regimes.

The virus hasn’t changed just because the federal government’s definitions and approach to testing has changed.

The president of Professional Pharmacists Australia, Geoff March, said working pharmacists believe people’s access to RATs should not be dependent on how much they earn and can afford to pay:

Employee pharmacists are on the frontline of this issue, constantly running out of supply and seeing the look on people’s faces when they struggle to pay for tests.

Most Australians find the cost of testing their family prohibitive – if they’re able to find testing kits at all.

If Australians have to rely on the private sector to get Covid tests, they will be paying up to $20 each – that’s $100 for a family of five for just one test each time.

Hello everyone, this is Cait Kelly back to take you through the next few hours.

If you see anything around that could be good for the blog, tweet me @cait__kelly or email me cait.kelly@theguardian.com

Let’s get cracking into the afternoon.

I’m going to hand back to my colleague Cait Kelly now. Enjoy your afternoon!

Steven Marshall says he’s contacted the federal chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, and the prime minister, Scott Morrison, asking for AHPPC to look at how schools and childcare can return this year.

“We’d prefer to have a national approach,” he says.

Marshall says 30-40% of the people in hospital are not fully vaccinated. The proportion of people in SA 12 years and over who are not fully vaccinated is about 10%. Therefore the unvaccinated are overrepresented in hospital, says Marshall.

Marshall insists testing result waiting times have not blown out. “They haven’t blown out,” he says. “They have actually been coming down for the last four days.”

Not everyone agrees, though.

On hospitalisations, Marshall says that the 102 people in hospital with Covid is “well within our capacity”.

“We have been flexing up our capacity, we’ve already done it ahead of opening the border on 23 November for the Delta strain, now of course we have been able to revise that capacity surge for Omicron, and we continue to look at it pretty much on a daily basis,” he says.

The private pathology operator that has closed four of its sites is Clinpath. Asked if their decision to shut four sites with no notice was acceptable, Marshall says:

I’m not going to make a comment on a private company because they have got to, if you like, justify their reasons. But what I can say is that Clinpath has done an outstanding job as a private laboratory in South Australia, and are continuing to do good work in critical sectors in South Australia. Obviously they have made a decision to close four of their sites in South Australia and I think some interstate as well. Other private laboratories are closing down sites interstate.

Marshall says private laboratories in South Australia do a “proportionally small amount of the overall testing in South Australia”. “SA Pathology is the workhorse,” he says.

On rapid antigen tests, Marshall says the state received a shipment of 250,000 today. The state has 10m on order and is expecting to get about 1m tests in each week.

Marshall says there is a private lab that is closing four testing sites in South Australia.

He says also that there are 128 cases in the prison population, up from 90 yesterday.

South Australia has recorded 3,246 new cases, the premier, Steven Marshall has announced.

He says there are 102 people in hospital, 12 in ICU, one patient who is on a ventilator.