Victoria has reported six new locally acquired coronavirus cases, taking the state's outbreak to 60.
Key points:
- More than 51,000 test results were received on Tuesday, and 20,585 vaccine doses were administered
- Authorities are expected to announce an extension to Victoria's lockdown
- New South Wales is on alert after a case travelled into the state from Victoria last week
The positive cases were detected from 51,033 test results received on Tuesday, while 20,585 vaccination doses were administered at state-run vaccination sites.
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The state's seven-day circuit breaker lockdown was due to end at 11:59pm Thursday, but now looks set to be extended after government ministers and public health officials met last night to consider the issue.
The government yesterday highlighted its concerns that the Kappa variant involved in the outbreak was more infectious than previous strains, with contact tracers identifying transmission occurring between strangers with what Victoria's COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar called only "fleeting" contact.
Kimberley Prather, a distinguished professor in atmospheric chemistry at the University of California, said it was true that new variants, such as the Kappa variant spreading in Victoria, were "more transmissible".
"Which means that measures that you used before, you know how long you interact, the masks you wear, that worked before … may not be working so well now," she told ABC Radio Melbourne.
However, Professor Prather said some of the commentary from Mr Weimar was "a bit baffling".
"The commonality that is there now was there before, which is, all of those incidents that he described are people sharing the air indoors," she said.
"They kind of make it sound like, well they just passed by each other. But if they were inside, indoors with an infectious person, breathing the air, then that's how they're getting infected.
"This virus is airborne and you get infected by inhaling shared air. So every one of those cases that he described, that's clearly what's happening."
The ABC has spoken to the family of the woman who was believed to have caught coronavirus through "fleeting" transmission at a display home in Mickleham.
Her family says she returned a positive result last Friday, but she later got retested and returned a negative result this morning.
They say they were suspicious about the positive result because her visit to the display home exposure site was two days after the visit from a confirmed case.
NSW on alert after man travels north
Late last night, Victoria's health department revealed a recent case had travelled up into New South Wales while potentially infectious, resulting in exposure sites being listed for regional Victorian service stations along the Hume Freeway and in Jervis Bay, Goulburn, Hyams Beach and Vincentia in NSW.
Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy said most of the six new cases reported in Victoria today were family contacts of that man who travelled to New South Wales.
Professor Murphy told Senate Estimates none of the new cases were either aged care residents or staff.
Australian Medical Association president, Omar Khorshid, said the pace of community transmission in Victoria was very concerning.
"We're certainly seeing this much more rapid transmission, which is something we've been fearing for a while and we have kind of gotten away with," he told ABC News Breakfast.
Meanwhile, parts of the Melbourne Assessment Prison in Melbourne's CBD are in lockdown this morning after it was revealed a senior prison officer visited an exposure site.
Six staff, including the man who visited the exposure site, have been sent for testing this morning.
The union representing prison workers says sections of the remand prison the staff member did not visit are beginning to be unlocked.
The prison will be closed for visitors today.
Victoria records six new local COVID cases as lockdown announcement looms - ABC News
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