• Aussie kids aged 5-11yo could get their first COVID jab by Christmas, depending on when pharma giant Pfizer makes an application to Australia’s medicines regulator. Regulatory approval will be sought in America later this month, and Health Minister Greg Hunt yesterday urged Pfizer to get things rolling here at the same time.

• The latest members of the locked-down family are residents in the Byron, Kempsey and Tweed shires of NSW. A 7-day snap lockdown comes after a woman from Sydney working in the area on the latest season of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here tested positive. That burst the Queensland border bubble…

• And a new bleak milestone – the number of American lives claimed by COVID has passed those from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. More than 675,000 Americans have now died from COVID, and new modelling predicts that could climb to 776,000 by the year’s end. Note: COVID’s death rate is lower than the Spanish flu.