Victoria has recorded four new locally acquired COVID-19 cases, as the state's health officials confirm a new variant of the virus has been detected.
Key points:
- The health department received 49,439 test results yesterday, and 24,169 doses of vaccine were given
- The Acting Premier James Merlino says Melbourne's lockdown will not be lifted early, despite two false positives
- Victoria has asked the federal government for a bigger supply of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccine to meet demand
The results were detected among 49,439 tests received on Thursday, and there were 24,169 vaccine doses administered at state-run sites.
The four new cases are all linked to existing cases.
Three of the new cases are connected to a family in West Melbourne, while one is a close contact of a confirmed case.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said genomic testing had confirmed a new variant had been detected in two of the original West Melbourne family cases.
The new variant, known as Delta, is the same strain that has been prevalent in India during that country's outbreak.
Professor Sutton said the Delta variant had not previously been detected in Australia.
"It is a variant of significant concern," Professor Sutton said.
"It spread extremely rapidly across India, it's become the predominant variant, indeed almost the exclusive variant there, and in surrounding countries."
"It has not been linked to any sequenced cases across Australia from hotel quarantine or anywhere else," he said.
Yesterday, two cases of coronavirus previously linked to Melbourne's growing outbreak were reclassified as false positives.
A woman previously thought to have acquired the virus at a display home in Mickleham and a man who was understood to have contracted COVID-19 at the Brighton Beach Hotel have been removed from the state's official case count.
The cases had been cited by health officials as two examples of at least half a dozen where the virus was transmitted through "fleeting contact" between strangers.
No early end to Melbourne's lockdown despite false positives
Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino this morning hosed down any expectations that Melbourne's lockdown could be lifted early, in light of the false positives revealed last night.
"Our answer on that hasn't changed and nor should it," he said.
"The proposition put forward by public health was that we needed this further seven day period for Greater Melbourne to absolutely run this thing to the ground and that remains the case."
The Health Department said there were still eight cases of transmission arising from casual contact, and five exposure sites where transmission occurred with no record of direct interaction.
"We've got 5,000 primary close contacts, we've got exposure sites right across the state, we've got a high number of cases, many of them of some concern to public health," Mr Merlino said.
Two epidemiologists had told the ABC that the false positives could justify an early end to Melbourne's extended lockdown.
Chair of Epidemiology at Deakin University, Catherine Bennett said it was "very good news" that the cases had been reclassified.
"It could put us in a very good position to look for an earlier end to lockdown," Professor Bennett said.
"This just shows us that we are even closer to the leading edge of this outbreak," she said.
Epidemiologist Tony Blakely from the University of Melbourne said: "Maybe we'll get out of this lockdown before another week is up.
"I hope we're on top of it and maybe we can get out of this lockdown say early next week, rather than late next week," he said.
Request for more vaccine doses to ease supply issues
ABC News: Billy Draper
)Victoria has made a request to the Commonwealth to double the supply of AstraZeneca vaccine doses to the state's GPs for the next four weeks at least.
Victoria is experiencing record demand for vaccinations, but some general practices are running out of doses and have been turning to the state to bolster their supply.
"We also want to see additional Pfizer allocations starting from a further 100,000 from mid-June and some confidence in supply for that six week period," Mr Merlino said.
"Our health ministers, Martin Foley in Victoria and Greg Hunt federally, have been in discussions and I'm very pleased that the federal government has indicated it will do all it can to meet the request of Victoria."
Mr Merlino said about 140,000 doses of vaccine were being administered each week, but demand was still exceeding supply.
"People are having to wait weeks, we've seen long queues and we've also seen some gaps in our access, particularly in regional Victoria and in our peri-urban areas."
Victoria records four new local COVID cases as Melbourne lockdown enters second week - ABC News
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