Zero new cases for Western Australia:

Aboriginal children in Western Australia have been kept in detention after being granted bail because child protection services did not know where to house them, the Aboriginal Legal Service has said. Read the whole story here:

Related: Aboriginal children ‘kept in detention’ despite being granted bail in Western Australia

In case you missed it in the excitement of Australia’s Ashes win: England’s performance in the third test was their lowest total in Australia since 1904.

Relive the glory (or the humiliation) here:

Related: Australia retain the Ashes after thrashing England to take 3-0 series lead | Ali Martin

Hello! Donna Lu here, keeping the blog warm while Tory grabs a bite to eat.

We’ve been hearing a lot about long testing queues. Here’s a shot from Fran Kelly from earlier this morning:

New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet has echoed health minister Brad Hazzard by attacking “tourism tests”.

Hazzard has been snarky with the Queensland government, and says their requirements for tourists to get tested before they visit is clogging up the NSW system.

As people keep reporting those long testing queues and wait times for results, Perrottet’s keen for people to switch to Rapid Antigen Tests and is putting pressure on other premiers to do the same.

He’s promising free rapid tests for NSW by the end of January, and the government has put in an order for 20 million.

He also said pregnant women should not be sitting in testing queues (see below – it came up earlier in the Hazzard conference).

Some more figures from Queensland:

A quick look at the United States now. Those without symptoms will now only have to isolate for five days, down from 10.

The Centers for Disease Control said after isolating, people should wear a mask when they are around other people.

It also recommended a five-day quarantine for those exposed to the virus who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose or more than two months after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and not yet boosted. You can read our US wrap here:

Related: Joe Biden says US Covid surge should be ‘a source of concern but not panic’

Australia has retained the Ashes! You can read all the details at our live blog:

Related: Ashes 2021-22 third Test, day three: Australia thrash England by an innings – live reaction!

Previously the advice was for those under 50:

If you’re after some more details on those changes in Queensland:

Some good (and useful!) info here from Sydney airport (update: this is just for international travellers):

A teenager accused of continuing to party at an Adelaide nightclub after being told he was Covid-positive has been charged and denied bail. AAP reports:

A teen who partied at an Adelaide nightclub despite knowing he had tested positive for Covid-19 has been arrested. Police nabbed the 19-year-old Kensington Park man on Tuesday and charged him with failing to comply with emergency directions.

It’s alleged the man stayed at a nightclub in the city after being told by SA Health that he had returned a positive Covid-19 test result, and that he failed to quarantine.

Police denied the man bail. He’s expected to appear in Adelaide magistrates court on Wednesday. He faces up to two years behind bars or a $20,000 fine if convicted.

The state is on high alert after recording 842 new cases on Monday, the state’s highest single-day total. It topped the previous record of 774 on Sunday.

More from Brad Hazzard, the New South Wales health minister. He is pretty keen on getting rid of a whole range of PCR tests in favour of rapid antigen tests.

He said he was talking to the federal government about removing the requirement for PCR tests for international arrivals, and pushing for hospitals to allow pregnant women to do rapid testing at home instead of queueing.

He was also asked by a reporter about new mothers being asked to do PCR tests before seeing their newborns. He said he hadn’t heard about it but didn’t want to see anything come between mothers and their babies.

Hazzard has also spoken to St Vincent’s hospital about errors that saw their pathology department mistakenly tell about 1,400 people their Covid tests were negative:

Unfortunately when people are under pressure, human errors are more frequent.

Something a bit more chill, now – overseas customers are “lapping up” Australia’s ice-cream and dairy products, trade minister Dan Tehan says.

Australia had record ice-cream exports last financial year. Tehan said (and I think we can all agree):

A cold ice-cream on a hot summer’s day is one of life’s simple pleasures, and one we’re exporting to the rest of the world.

More footage of those queues – this one in Sydney. Yikes. A big thank you to everyone involved for their patience …

Back on those testing queues, waiting times for results and calls for more rapid antigen testing.

Social media is filling up (again) with reports of people waiting hours – and the day’s just started!

I mentioned Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is set to make a decision about their use soon, and that NSW health minister Brad Hazzard blamed Queensland for requiring travellers to get tested before they go.

AAP reports that she made her announcement “as hundreds of cars were still lined up at one north Brisbane testing site on Monday just ahead of it closing”:

Of the people AAP spoke to, around half were from interstate and were required to take a PCR test. Car batteries were going flat in the line and people, including the elderly, were forced to wait for hours in hot vehicles.

The numbers appear to correlate with people lining up in the ACT to get tested, with the territory’s health minister saying anecdotal evidence from testing teams pointed to half of all swabs being for people getting tested to travel.

A potentially deadly batch of ecstasy is circulating in New South Wales.

NSW Health said the “high-dose” pills had twice the average amount of MDMA in them. They’re blue, round and have a Superman logo.

Prof Andrew Dawson, the NSW Poisons Information Centre’s acting medical director, said high doses could cause severe agitation and paranoia, raised body temperature, seizures or fits, irregular heart rhythms and death.

Stay safe, people. And call triple zero if you (or someone you know) is unwell.

There are various moves afoot to get more rapid antigen tests available, in more situations (see below – treasurer Josh Frydenberg was asked this morning if the federal government could play a bigger role).

Queensland is expected to make a decision on replacing PCR tests with rapid tests in some situations, AAP reports. Australian Capital Territory health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said they could be useful for screening travellers.

NSW is set to make the tests free in the new year.

South Australia overturned its ban on rapid tests last week.

Labor’s health spokesman Mark Butler has called on the federal government to make them more affordable and accessible.

I always appreciate a fast-forward video but this one made me feel a little anxious …

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has told the ABC he is confident about Australia’s economic recovery despite the “new set of challenges” posed by the Omicron variant.

New Treasury analysis of a bunch of economic indicators show Australia is doing better than many countries. Frydenberg said:

[There] is reason to be confident but there is also reason to follow the health advice and to not be complacent. And so using common sense and compassion as opposed to fear and panic is the way to go forward.

Asked if the federal government would act to ease Covid testing queues and waiting times for results, he said it was encouraging states to adopt rapid antigen tests instead of PCR tests before travel.

And the federal government was doing the “bulk of the heavy lifting” in terms of paying for testing.

The Covid positive test rate in New South Wales has risen to 6.5%, the highest since the pandemic began.

The positivity rate is up from 1.73% a week ago and 0.71% a fortnight ago, a figure some epidemiologists say is likely to mean a proportion of cases are going undetected. Read more here:

Related: Covid positive test rate in NSW jumps to 6.5%, highest since start of pandemic