The Informer: Wet and wild start to weekend across large parts of Australia

In Victoria, Mount Hotham, Harrietville and Granite Flat were all drenched in more than 100 millimetres of the stuff, which came through as a cut-off low and cold front swept across south-east Australia.

And in Western Australia, a once-in-a-decade flood was currently under way in the Gascoyne region. The river was expected to peak at 7.1 metres.

Aerial shots showed parts of the region completely covered by water, with just the tops of trees and buildings visible.

Premier Mark McGowan on Saturday said he'd been advised such significant flooding had not been seen in the region since 2010.

In Sydney, a police officer has been run over by a reversing car while another has been shot in the arm in the city's inner west.

Four officers were on Friday evening approaching a Honda sedan parked at an Earlwood reserve when the vehicle began to reverse, striking an officer.

Police say one of the four officers - a 44-year-old senior constable - then shot his gun, with a fragment of the bullet striking another officer in the forearm.

A 27-year-old male constable was set to have surgery later today to remove the fragment. He was in a stable condition.

The driver of the vehicle, a 26-year-old man and his 25-year-old female passenger were yet to be charged and had been released from custody.

Detective Superintendent Paul Devaney said the officers' actions would be subject to an internal review.

The four officers - two of whom were in plain clothes - were driving an unmarked police vehicle.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand another new COVID-19 case in Hamilton had been linked to an outbreak from the Pullman Hotel.

On Saturday, New Zealand's health ministry announced they'd received a new positive test from a person released on January 30.

The person tested negative for COVID-19 while in mandatory 14-day isolation, and even on February 2 after their release, before producing the positive result.

However, the person had been self-isolating at home since their release, and officials believed the public health risk was low.

"People in and around Hamilton should not be alarmed. We are acting out of an abundance of caution," a Ministry of Health statement read.

If you're keen to find out the origins of the novel coronavirus, don't hold your breath.

An Australian member of the World Health Organisation-led team visiting the Chinese city of Wuhan said he had been surprised by the complexity of getting to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and that years of research lies ahead.

Dominic Dwyer, a microbiologist and infectious diseases expert, said the team in Wuhan had received the access it requested from Chinese authorities as it tried to understand the early days of the novel coronavirus outbreak first detected in Wuhan.

"It would be naive to think that we're going to get virus zero," Mr Dwyer said.

Finally, to the United States, where President Joe Biden said Donald Trump's erratic behaviour should preclude him from intelligence briefings.

"I think not," Biden said when asked by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell if Trump should get the briefings.

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