COVID-19 Update 8 June

08 June 2020 by News Desk   |   SHARE  

COVID-19 lockdown is lifting to help parents with school-age children but it will come at a cost.

Free childcare in Australia will end on July 12, now that demand has returned to 70% of pre-pandemic levels. Education Minister Dan Tehan says that measures will be in place to protect facilities and families whose incomes have been harmed by the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

The number of new Australian COVID-19 cases dropped by 30% in the past week and majority of cases confirmed in the past week were acquired overseas.

There are currently 460 active cases across the country. New Zealand says its final active COVID-19 case had recovered and all lockdown restrictions would be lifted in days.

The global death toll has passed 403,000. More than seven million people have been infected since the start of the pandemic and more than 3.1 million have recovered, according to the Johns Hopkins University

COVID-19 Retail Impact

Australian retail turnover fell 17.7 per cent in April 2020, following a rise of 8.5 per cent in March.

“COVID-19 continued to affect retail trade in April with many retail businesses closing their physical stores during April due to restrictions relating to social distancing” said Ben James, Director of Quarterly Economy Wide Surveys at the Australian Bureau of Statistics

The closure of physical stores in some industries led to a rise in online retail turnover, which contributed 11.1 per cent to total retail turnover in original terms in April 2020, up from 7.1 per cent in March 2020.

In April 2019, online retail turnover contributed 5.7 per cent to total retail. Additional analysis noted that online sales made up over 20.5 per cent of sales across household goods retailing, clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing, department stores, and other retailing.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Australia has narrowly avoided economic “Armageddon”, but the full economic impact of the lockdown will not be known for some time.

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