Victoria records no new local cases of COVID-19 - The Age

Victoria has recorded no new local coronavirus cases for the sixth day in a row, as public health authorities consider scrapping the rule for masks to be worn in offices.

Two new cases were recorded in hotel quarantine in the past 24 hours.

Victorian health authorities are considering removing the mandate on masks in offices. Credit:Eddie Jim

Nearly 22,150 test results were processed in the past 24 hours, and more than 15,450 people received their vaccine doses.

The figures come as the state’s health team met on Monday to discuss removing masks in offices as well as rules around AFL crowds and other entertainment.

The new restrictions will likely come into place at 11.59pm on Thursday.

While masks would still be required in indoor settings such as supermarkets for the foreseeable future, infectious diseases experts and businesses said it was logical to consider offices as separate entities because they were controlled environments where workers knew each other, simplifying contact tracing.

Acting Chief Health Officer Dan O’Brien described indoor masks in general as a “safety blanket”, particularly with outbreaks ongoing in states such as New South Wales, but he acknowledged that offices could be considered lower risk than other indoor settings.

However, Australian Medical Association Victorian branch president Roderick McRae warned against the change on Tuesday, saying he thought it was premature for the mask mandate to be removed in Victorian offices.

He said Victoria was edging towards the change as more people became vaccinated against COVID-19, but it was “all about the knowledge of the circumstances of everybody in your vicinity”.

“We know with this virus many people are completely asymptomatic and yet they’re transmitting the virus,” Dr McRae told radio station 3AW.

“They don’t know they’ve got it, you don’t know they’ve got it, and if you’re not able to stay physically distanced from them, then there’s the risk of the transmission.”

Dr McRae said it was probably realistic to think that masks could be required in some settings for many years to come, as they helped minimise coronavirus’ transmission.

Student plan to supersize rollout

The Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid has said general practitioners could call on medical students, trainee paramedics and retired health workers to ramp up the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the final months of the year, when mass vaccine doses are expected to arrive.

Dr Khorshid said deploying those people to assist the vaccine effort could help to avoid a situation where more nurses were taken out of frontline hospital roles.

“The numbers [of vaccine doses] we are talking about in the last quarter of the year are really quite extraordinary,” Dr Khorshid said.

He said while limited supply was the current handbrake on Australia’s vaccine rollout, “once the Pfizer arrives in full swing it’s actually going to be the logistics and the administration that is going to be the big challenge”.

With Abbi Dib

Adblock test (Why?)

Victoria records no new local cases of COVID-19 - The Age
Read More