Victorian Minister for Health Martin Foley said the approach of NSW was not something he would aspire to.Credit:Eddie JIm
During the COVID-19 update on Saturday, Health Minister Martin Foley said the approach of NSW was not something he would aspire to, with the northern state’s health system “under huge strain” with hundreds of cases in hospital.
“I would not be putting the Victorian healthcare system under that amount of pressure because all those cases mean your car accidents, your stroke victims, your heart attacks, your chronic illnesses are not in intensive care because those beds are taken up by others,” he said.
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“What is at stake here is not just weddings, and social events. It’s life and death decisions that keep our health system operating at a level that Victorians would want to achieve.
“I’m not sure 1000 cases a day is a sign of hope … I’m pretty sure that if you ask those intensive care nurses in Sydney hospitals at the moment how they saw the situation, it wouldn’t be a hugely rosy picture.”
New Port Melbourne cluster a concern: Weimar
Victoria’s COVID Commander Jerone Weimar said of the 64 new local COVID-19 cases recorded on Saturday, four were in the inner-city suburb of Port Melbourne.
More than a dozen mentions over several days identified Prestige Hand Carwash and Auto Mega Warehouse in Plummer Street as close contact exposure sites, all in the same industrial pocket of the suburb.
Mr Weimar said the four cases were linked, so far only geographically, to this Plummer Street area, which includes a newly opened Woolworths store.
He called for people who have used facilities in that street, such as the car detailing facility and Woolworths, to come forward and get tested.
COVID testing at Shepparton Showgrounds.Credit:Justin McManus
New wastewater detections in Victoria
Mr Weimar said called recurring positive wastewater detections from the Sunshine West industrial estate an “Agatha Christie”-level mystery.
“We have done repeated wastewater testing on a daily cycle over the last two or three weeks, I think it’s been pinging for about 10 days,” he said.
“The teams have done some, some very good detective work to try to narrow down to which corner of that industrial state those tests relate to.”
Health authorities are also concerned about wastewater detections in Aspendale, Aspendale Gardens, Bonbeach, Carrum, Chelsea, Chelsea Heights, Edithvale, Mordialloc, Patterson Lakes and Seaford between 23 to 26 August.
“We need people to help us use the wastewater detection as the early warning signal to make sure that they stay ahead of the virus outbreaks,” Mr Foley said.
Victoria in talks over extra shots
High-level discussions are underway to send more vaccine shots to Victoria after months of supply top-ups to NSW, with Victoria forecast to hit the first-dose target a month after its northern neighbour.
The state government is also considering direct payments to GPs to encourage them to vaccinate patients on weekends when subsidies in the federally run scheme often fail to cover wage costs.
More than 785,000 jabs were delivered in NSW in the week to Wednesday compared with 447,000 in Victoria as it continued to lag behind the ACT, NT, Tasmania and NSW on total per capita doses.
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Mr Foley said the demand from Victorians between the age of 18 and 39 for a jab had been so strong they now needed “all the supply we can lay our hands on” from the federal government to keep up.
“We will be very, very clear to the Commonwealth that Victoria will take all the vaccines it can lay its hands on, and we will need more vaccines to meet the level of demand that we’re seeing now,” he said.
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Victoria records 64 new local cases, including 15 unlinked - Brisbane Times
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