Victoria has set another deadly COVID record, confirming 19 more fatalities on Monday.
The toll rose even as the number of new confirmed infections fell to 322 – the state’s lowest tally in 13 days.
The deaths, the highest yet for a single day in the pandemic, take Australia’s coronavirus toll to 314. Victoria accounts for 229 of those.
Premier Daniel Andrews will provide further details at a briefing later on Monday.
Deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth was hopeful infection numbers in Victoria would soon drop.
“It’s important to wait for the trend to emerge, but we do have some confidence in the coming days to week we’ll see those numbers come down,” he told the ABC.
“What is happening in Victoria could happen anywhere and it just behoves us to all change our behaviour for the coming months while we get this situation under control.”
Tweet from @VicGovDHHS
The falling numbers of confirmed daily infections come as Melbourne enters its second week of a strict six-week lockdown that authorities desperately hope will quell the deadly second wave of coronavirus that has swept the city.
Regional Victoria is under less stringent stage-three restrictions, also until at least mid-September.
Earlier, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg again called out the Victorian government for its hotel quarantine failures, saying the mistakes must be explained.
The botched program is thought to have sparked Victoria’s deadly coronavirus second wave.
Mr Frydenberg, who is self-isolating in Canberra ahead of the next federal parliament sitting, said it should never have reached the point where the state had hundreds of new cases and multiple deaths a day.
“It’s very very difficult emotionally, it’s difficult obviously on the economy as well,” he told 2GB radio on Monday.
“We know with respect to quarantine, there have been very significant failures with deadly consequences. Victorians deserve answers. I’ll leave that to Daniel Andrews and his government to provide.”
Earlier, Queensland reported just one new coronavirus case on Monday – in a returned overseas traveller in hotel quarantine. Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said that meant the state had returned to no community transmission of the virus, after a cluster of five cases sparked by three teenagers who travelled to Melbourne.
She urged Queenslanders to keep coming forward for testing at the slightest sign of COVID symptoms.
“If we can get the first case – not the fourth case or the 50th case – if we can get the first case of infection and stop those chains of transmission, we’ll be able to manage it going forward,” Dr Young said.
NSW figures are yet to be released for Monday.
-more to come
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