LATEST COVID-19 DEVELOPMENTS:
* NSW recorded five new local COVID-19 cases, including four which are yet to be linked to known clusters.
* The cases, and 11 more in hotel quarantine, came from fewer than 15,000 tests, causing concern for officials over falling rates of testing.
* Queensland's chief health officer has warned the highly infectious UK variant of coronavirus is still a risk in Greater Brisbane.
* No new local cases have been reported in Queensland since Monday night when the partner of a quarantine hotel cleaner was confirmed to have COVID-19.
* Masks are mandatory in supermarkets, shops, indoor markets, places of worship, libraries, gyms and indoor recreational facilities such as cinemas and art galleries in Brisbane until January 22 and in Sydney until further notice.
* Victoria has already issued more than 31,000 permits to enter the state since launching its new traffic-light system.
* Under the system, regional NSW is "orange", meaning stranded Victorians can come home if they apply for a permit and get tested for COVID-19 with 72 hours of their return, but greater Sydney and Brisbane remain "red" zones.
* The permit application website wasn't available until 8.55pm on Monday - nearly three hours after the new system came into effect, leading to apologies from the Andrews government.
* Travellers arriving without a permit face a $4957 fine.
* Victoria recorded no new local or interstate-acquired coronavirus cases for the sixth day in a row, after receiving 18,139 test results.
* A western Sydney man will face court in February charged with destroying property after allegedly going on a tirade in a McDonald's when asked to sign-in for contact tracing.
* The Northern Territory and ACT are welcoming more Sydneysiders after narrowing its restrictions to cover only particular locations including Parramatta, the Inner West and Blacktown.
* The NSW and West Australian premiers are in a spat over national cabinet's COVID-19 suppression strategy after Mark McGowan had claimed NSW was the only state trying to suppress and not eliminate the virus.
* His NSW counterpart Gladys Berejiklian says anyone thinking elimination is possible "unfortunately doesn't appreciate what the pandemic means".
* She said zero community transmission was the goal, particularly while overseas Australians continue to return home.
* Passenger numbers have been halved on three repatriation flights for Australians stranded overseas, after three states halved arrivals to reduce exposure to the highly contagious UK strain of coronavirus.
AUSTRALIAN CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS:
* There were 19 new virus cases recorded in Australia on Tuesday: 16 in NSW, two in Queensland and one in WA. All but five in NSW were recorded in hotel quarantine.
* 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 90,891,000
* Deaths: at least 1,944,750
* Recovered: at least 50,285,500
Data current as of 1730 AEDT on January 12.
Source: federal and state/territory government updates, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre.
Australian Associated Press
