Victoria’s COVID outbreak has jumped by six, with millions of residents poised to learn whether the statewide lockdown will be extended.
The new community infections confirmed on Wednesday take the state’s outbreak to at least 60 cases.
It came after more than 51,000 tests in the previous 24 hours – and 20,500 vaccine doses administered in state-run centres.
Tweet from @VicGovDH
But the daily tally will do little to quell anxiety about a likely extension to Victoria’s lockdown, which had been due to end at midnight on Thursday.
Of most concern is the amount of “stranger-to-stranger transmission” in the expanding outbreak, with one in 10 people in catching the virus through just fleeting contact with strangers.
There are also more than 350 exposure sites, including Glenrowan and Euroa in regional Victoria.
- See an updated list of Victorian exposure sites here
As Wednesday’s figures were released, the ABC reported “well-sourced word from within the Victorian government there will be some extension of the lockdown” – although the number of extra days was not given. State authorities are expected to provide an update later in the day, although a time has not yet been given.
Even before Wednesday’s update, The Age newspaper said the state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton’s team was “leaning strongly toward” recommending a lockdown extension.
Elsewhere, parts of NSW also remain on high alert after a coronavirus-infected Melbourne man went on a camping trip.
- Click here for NSW testing sites and venues of concern
Extra testing clinics are being set up in southern NSW after the man’s diagnosis was confirmed. He was on holidays with his family in NSW last week while potentially infectious.
He visited several locations around Jervis Bay, Hyams Beach, Vincentia and Goulburn on May 23 and 24.
The man drove back to Melbourne on May 24 before developing symptoms and getting tested.
There are also renewed calls for an overhaul of hotel quarantine after a man became infected in Perth.
The Australian Medical Association wants urgent changes to hotel quarantine after the man was infected by a returned traveller in the room next door at a hotel in Perth.
State health authorities are investigating the transmission.
It is the latest in a long list of breaches in hotel quarantine across the country.
“This would be the 21st [breach] according to our own records of issues within hotel quarantine,” chief medical officer Paul Kelly told a Senate hearing.
“But we have to think about what the background is, that 352,000 people have come through hotel quarantine over that period.”
Meanwhile, the aged care sector has called for solutions to boost the pace of the vaccine rollout.
The number of aged care workers who are fully vaccinated is unknown and many residents are yet to receive their second doses.
While there are 366,000 people employed in aged care nationally, 32,823 have received both doses through Commonwealth visits to nursing homes.
There are several other ways to receive vaccinations but the national figures are not recorded.
More than three months after the rollout began, less than two-thirds of nationwide aged care residents have received both doses of their vaccines.
Victoria has launched a five-day blitz of vaccination of aged-care workers. It will allow them to jump the lengthy queues at some of the state’s vaccination centres.
-with AAP
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