Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley says the state is in a "precarious position" as it enters its first day of a week-long lockdown in a bid to suppress an outbreak of the Delta COVID-19 variant.
Key points:
- Victoria has recorded six new locally acquired COVID-19 cases which are linked but were not quarantined while infectious
- Two Virgin flights in and out of Melbourne are among recent exposure site listings
- A student at Heathdale Christian College in Werribee is among recent cases
Victoria has recorded six locally acquired cases of COVID-19 which are linked to previous cases but were not in quarantine while infectious.
Mr Foley said the new cases were:
- Three members of a household who were linked to the early case in a teacher at Al-Taqwa College. Two of these were announced yesterday
- A cleaner who worked shifts in administrative parts of the Epworth hospital in Richmond, and is a housemate of a City of Maribyrnong case
- Two other cases related to the City of Maribyrnong outbreak, including one who attends the Warringa Park specialist school in Hoppers Crossing
Epworth HealthCare said in a statement the contractor worked on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday between 6:00pm and 9:00pm, cleaning on levels six and eight of the Richmond medical centre.
"The contractor only worked in the medical centre and did not clean in any patient area," the statement said.
ABC News: John Graham, file photo
)The cases were detected from among 29,631 test results processed on Thursday.
"Victoria is in a precarious position when it comes to where this particular series of outbreaks are at the moment," Mr Foley said.
"It is in all of our hands to continue to work together, to work with our public health teams to get on top of and ahead of this particular outbreak.
"We have driven down this Delta variant and we can do it again."
Two Virgin flights in and out of Melbourne have been added to Victoria's list of exposure sites, which includes dozens of shops across the city's west.
COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said Victorians should keep a "beady eye" on the exposure sites in the coming hours and days.
"We will see, we think, exposure sites start to spread across wider parts of the city and potentially regional Victoria as our contact tracing interviews continue," he said.
Mr Weimar said there was a $400 isolation payment available for people who needed to miss work to have a test, and $1,500 available to people who had to isolate.
"We will do everything we can to ensure that you can isolate safely and effectively," he said.
"Please support one another, please support those who are doing the hard yards, making difficult decisions, having to isolate, to sit at home with the kids."
Loading
Health authorities are racing to test and quarantine nearly 2,500 primary close contacts linked to Al-Taqwa College in Melbourne's west.
A Victorian-first pop-up testing and vaccination site is running at the school between 8:00am 8:00pm, allowing people to both get tested for COVID-19 and get a dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
"We have had fantastic support ... from Al-Taqwa College and working with their school leadership to reach out to the whole school community," Mr Weimar said.
School community rallies behind infected couple
Al-Taqwa College spokesperson Terry Barnes said he felt morale at the school was "pretty good" and the one-stop site for both testing and vaccinations was in strong demand.
"It's showing that the community is rallying and doing what needs to be done," Mr Barnes told ABC Radio Melbourne.
He said the school community was also rallying behind the teacher and her partner who tested positive earlier this week.
ABC News: Rudy De Santis
)Mr Barnes said there had been some "very unpleasant social media and emails sent to the college" after the cases came to light and a lockdown was called.
"The college is not the problem here, the college has done everything it can to keep COVID out," he said.
"The couple themselves, they did nothing wrong, they did everything right, their doctors said they did everything right in coming forward and getting tested and isolating.
Werribee school student among recent cases
Network 10: Trung Ly
)Heathdale Christian College, in Melbourne's west, has told parents a confirmed case of COVID-19 has been recorded at the school.
The school said a child in year 6 at the school's Werribee campus had tested positive and the campus was closed until further notice.
The school has also closed its kinder and authorised worker programs at its Melton campus.
The school said students who were at either campus on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday this week must get tested and quarantine.
Students and teachers from years 5 and 6 at the school must quarantine for 14 days.
In announcing the lockdown on Thursday, Premier Daniel Andrews said wastewater testing results around Wangaratta in the state's north-east were one of the reasons why the lockdown included regional communities.
Authorities are urging anyone who has been in Wangaratta or surrounding towns including Milawa and Oxley to be on high alert for COVID-19 symptoms after wastewater testing detected fragments of the virus around July 28.
Loading form...
Victoria records six local COVID-19 cases as statewide lockdown begins - ABC News
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment