Morning mail: Covid ‘out of control’ in central Australia, rising petrol prices, brutal killer whales

Friday: Aboriginal organisations accuse the NT government of failing to carry out emergency plans over outbreak. Plus: recordings show orcas hunting blue whales

Good morning. There are concerns over the ability of home rapid antigen tests to detect the Covid Omicron variant, as issues over the supply of the tests to concession card holders rumble on.

Covid is out of control" in central Australia, representing a catastrophic failure" by the Northern Territory government to carry out its own emergency plans, according to the three biggest Aboriginal organisations in the NT. The groups have accused the NT government of failing to adequately carry out emergency plans that had been made with them well in advance" of the current outbreak. Many of the issues we are facing were foreseen, and plans made to address them. But there has been a catastrophic failure by government to discharge its responsibility to all Northern Territory residents by implementing these plans in Central Australia," they wrote in a scathing letter to the NT chief minister, Michael Gunner.