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Latest snapshot of the coronavirus impact

Liz HobdayAAP
Qantas and regional Rex Airlines want further handouts to see them through COVID uncertainty.
Camera IconQantas and regional Rex Airlines want further handouts to see them through COVID uncertainty.

LATEST COVID-19 DEVELOPMENTS

* Two people have tested positive for the Russian strain of COVID-19 amid an outbreak at a Brisbane quarantine hotel, with another 75 security guests now being tested for the virus.

* Premier Gladys Berejiklian says NSW has been left in the dark on key aspects of the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine rollout, including which NSW aged care facilities have been visited by vaccine teams and how many residents have got the jab.

* Defence personnel will help with the rollout of coronavirus vaccines across Australia from next week.

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* About 41,000 Australians are still stranded overseas due to limitations on international travel, with emergency biosecurity powers now extended for another three months until mid-June.

* Qantas and regional Rex Airlines want further handouts to see them through COVID uncertainty, with the ending of the JobKeeper program this month.

* Qantas has also warned of further redundancies if uncertainty around travel continues. It wants further "ad hoc" border closures ruled out.

* A nine-month extension to the Victorian government's state of emergency powers passed parliament late on Tuesday with the support of three crossbench MPs.

* The Therapeutic Goods Administration is batch testing the first doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine this week, with the aim of rolling it out from March 8.

AUSTRALIAN CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:

* Australia recorded no new locally-acquired cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday. There were eight new cases in returned travellers in hotel quarantine: six in NSW, one in South Australia and one in Western Australia.

* The national death toll is 909: Victoria 820, NSW 56, Tasmania 13, WA 9, Queensland 6, SA 4, ACT 3 (Two Queensland residents who died in NSW have been included in the official tolls of both states).

GLOBAL CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:

* Cases: at least 114,749,889

* Deaths: at least 2,549,111

* Recovered: at least 64,903,492

Data current as of 1730 AEDT on March 3, taking in federal and state/territory government updates and Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre figures.

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