The Victorian government says it is still unable to offer contact-tracing support to NSW to help control its growing outbreak, despite recording just three new cases of coronavirus on Friday.
All new locally acquired cases in Victoria were linked to known outbreaks and those infected were isolating for their entire infectious period.
Health Minister Martin Foley said Victoria still needed to ‘mop up’ its own outbreaks on Friday.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui
But Health Minister Martin Foley said Victoria was still unable to respond to an open request from NSW to assist with contact tracing until Victoria mopped up its own outbreak.
“We are in constant conversation, not just with NSW but with other states, about what learnings and support we can provide,” he said. “But we have nothing to add at this stage."
On Friday NSW recorded 170 new COVID-19 cases, with 77 linked to a known outbreak or cluster and 93 under investigation.
It was the fifth consecutive day in which a majority of new cases were unlinked and comes almost a fortnight after NSW pleaded for help during a meeting of Australia’s federal and state chief medical officers.
So far the federal, South Australian and Western Australian governments have offered assistance.
“Victorians fully understand what it’s like to be in a tough winter, extending lockdown and we will continue to talk,” Mr Foley said.
In Victoria, there were no new cases in hotel quarantine on Friday and 200 active cases of COVID-19 across the state.
Federal and state governments agreed in principle to a four-phase national plan for reopening during a three-hour national cabinet meeting on Friday.
The Mooney Valley Racecourse testing site has been closed after a traffic controller tested positive.Credit:Nine News
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in the second phase, requiring 70 per cent of the eligible adult population to have two doses of vaccine, lockdowns would be less likely but still possible.
In the third, which requires a threshold of 80 per cent vaccination, the plan is to have “minimum baseline restrictions” without lockdowns on the whole, although highly targeted lockdown might be used where required.
For the final phase, which would include fully reopening international borders, the Doherty Institute did not recommend a vaccination target.
“It is too hard to say what the situation will be down the track,” Mr Morrison said.
There are no timetables for each phase, but the Prime Minister said he hoped to get to the 70 per cent threshold by the end of the year.
Of Victoria’s three new locally acquired cases announced on Friday, one was a household contact of an infected student from Bacchus Marsh Grammar while a second positive case was a resident of the Isola apartment block in Richmond, who lives on the same floor as an infected resident.
A staff member at Trinity Grammar also tested positive but was in isolation on Philip Island for their entire infectious period. Health authorities said that case explained how traces of the virus were detected in the region’s sewage last week.
Victorian Health Department deputy secretary Kate Matson said authorities were still trying to work out how a traffic controller who worked at a drive-through testing site in Moonee Ponds caught COVID-19.
She said genomic testing linked the case to the Maribyrnong Ariele Apartments cluster but it is not known how the man in his 20s contracted the virus, despite extensive testing among his colleagues and social contacts.
“I’m pleased to report that we have 48 out of 58 results back from his colleagues at the Moonee Valley racecourse testing site, and thus far, they are negative," she said.
Mr Foley said it would not be listed as a 'mystery case' because heath authorities knew its origin.
"We are looking hard for that direct link," he said.
Mr Foley said the falling case numbers showed the state’s response to the pandemic was working, but warned "we’re not there yet".
He urged residents in Melbourne’s east and west to get tested at the “slightest signs” of COVID-19 after fragments of the virus were detected in wastewater centred around Camberwell and Caroline Springs.
As Tasmania re-opened its border with Victoria yesterday, Victorians in NSW and the ACT will remain locked out of the state until at least Tuesday when a current ban is due to expire. But Mr Foley hinted that the tough border rules blocking residents without an exemption from returning could remain in place.
“Those extreme designations cause significant problems for people wanting to enter into Victoria, but they are there for very good reasons. They are there to keep us safe.”
With Katina Curtis
Stay across the most crucial developments related to the pandemic with the Coronavirus Update. Sign up for the weekly newsletter.
Annika Smethurst is state political editor for The Age.
Victoria yet to offer NSW contact-tracing help as local case numbers fall - The Age
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment