WA to close to NT and Tasmania; NSW records 3,763 new cases – as it happened

WA to close to NT and Tasmania from Boxing Day and mandate booster shots for some workers; PM speaks after positive' emergency national cabinet meeting; SA reports record 198 Covid infections; NSW records 3,763 new cases and two deaths; Victoria records 1,503 cases and six deaths; Queensland records 186 cases; ACT records 58 cases; Tasmania records 12 cases. This blog is closed

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• Explainer: which Covid rapid antigen tests can you trust and what do they cost?
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More than 300 doctors around the world have written to deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce today urging him to seek Julian Assange's immediate release from prison in the UK on medical grounds.

The letter cites concern over Assange's apparent mini stroke, warning it may be the tip of a medical iceberg":

Indeed his symptoms suggest as much. It is therefore imperative that Mr Assange be released from prison, where his health will otherwise continue to deteriorate and where his complex medical needs cannot be met.

Perhaps our concerns were previously dismissed by your colleagues as hyperbolic. They are not. On the issue of cardiovascular pathology, we have been proven right. We do not wish to be proven right on the issue of Mr Assange's survival.

We implore you, as Deputy Prime Minister, to intervene with the UK Government to seek Mr Assange's immediate release on urgent medical grounds. We reiterate that he is an Australian citizen innocent in the eyes of the law, and guilty of and charged with nothing in the UK.