Rolling coverage: Nine cases, no deaths; remainder of high-schoolers to return to class
A gourmet food store in Melbourne’s inner east and an Aldi in the western suburbs have been identified as the latest high-risk coronavirus locations. It comes as the remainder of the city’s high-schoolers prepare for a return to the classroom beginning next week.
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The remainder of Melbourne high-schoolers will return to the classroom beginning next week.
Year 7 students will return to school from next Monday, with the remaining secondary school students back in the classroom from October 26.
The staged return to school will be subject to health advice and has been set up to give schools enough time to arrange a safe return to the classroom.
Primary school students, students studying VCE and VCAL and students attending specialist schools will return to school next week.
Education Minister James Merlino thanked parents, teachers and school communities for their patience, but warned of changes that families could expect.
“At the school level, there are a number of strategies in place. So at secondary schools, everyone is wearing a mask,” he said.
“There will be staggered pick-up and drop-off times where appropriate, particularly in our larger primary and secondary schools.
“There will be physical distancing at the school gate. There will be a very strong message to parents: this is pick-up and drop-off. It’s not dropping off the kids and having a chat at the school gate, as much as you would like to.
“There’s restrictions on adults coming on to the school sites.”
KILMORE CAFE SLAMS INFECTED MELBOURNE DINER
A regional Victorian cafe has been left heartbroken after it was contacted by health authorities and advised a positive case from Melbourne had dined there.
The owner of Oddfellows Cafe in Kilmore, an hour north of Melbourne, said she had “worked so hard” to keep their business open.
“To say I’m upset this has happened when it shouldn’t of (sic) is an understatement,” owner Kim Short wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
The Melburnian was allowed to leave the CBD to provide care to someone in Kilmore, but decided to dine at the cafe while transiting through.
They tested positive over the weekend after coming into contact with someone in the Chadstone cluster.
Prof Sutton told reporters on Monday the Melburnian was only permitted to buy takeaway from the cafe.
The person also triggered a virus alert at White Line Tyres in Benalla on September 30, the same day they dined at Oddfellows.
Prof Sutton did not tell reporters which Melbourne suburb the positive case had come from.
“I do (know where they live) but I won’t say,” Prof Sutton said.
“I don’t want that individual to be potentially identifiable. Obviously the numbers of people who are in Kilmore and visit Kilmore is pretty small. Those who are working also reduces the potential number of people you can think about.”
NINE NEW CASES, NO DEATHS OVERNIGHT
Meanwhile, nine new cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Victoria overnight.
And promisingly, no new virus deaths have occurred — the first time since September 15.
It is just the second time Victoria has seen a fatal-free day since July 13.
Currently, there are 227 active cases across the state, including 77 in aged-care and 29 among healthcare workers.
The consistently low infection numbers mean Melbourne’s crucial 14-day average is just hovering above 10, standing at 11.6, with 13 mystery cases recorded over the past fortnight.
One new mystery case was recorded overnight in postcode 3046, which includes the suburbs of Glenroy, Hadfield and Oak Park.
But regional Victoria’s average has risen by 0.1 to 0.3 after a new cases was recorded in Shepparton.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the patient was retested after the result returned a high CT value, which could mean a weak positive.
“We’re treating it as a positive. It may end up being a negative,” he said.
“But we’re working through that process. The case has been retested. There will be a formal test that goes to our reference laboratory in Melbourne. The close contacts have been tested.”
The Chadstone Butcher Club cluster, which now has 24 cases, also spread regionally and led to one infection in Mitchell Shire over the weekend.
And three new public exposure sites were revealed on Monday, with White Line Tyres in Benalla (September 30, noon to 3pm) linked to the Chadstone outbreak.
Other high-risk exposure sites include Leo’s Fine Food and Wine Supermarket, Glen Iris, on September 26, between noon and 2.20pm, and Aldi West Footscray on September 25 between noon and 12.15pm.
Thirty Victorians are currently undergoing treatment for COVID-19 in hospital, with three receiving intensive care and two of those patients on a ventilator.
NORTHERN TERRITORY TO REOPEN FOR SOME VICTORIANS
People living in regional Victoria could be able to travel to the Northern Territory without undergoing mandatory quarantine from next month.
The NT government announced on Monday it was set to revoke its coronavirus hotspot declaration for most of the state from November 2.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner said plans will begin to lift the declaration in four weeks.
“Today we can confirm that we are now happy enough with the progress made in regional Victoria to flag a future change in their hotspot status,” he said.
“Provided things keep progressing the way they are from Monday the second of November, most of regional Victoria will no longer be a hotspot for the purposes of travel to the Northern Territory.
“Right now, we will plan to remove the hot spot declaration in four weeks’ time for all Victorian local government areas outside of metropolitan Melbourne, with the exception of Greater Geelong, Macedon Ranges, Mitchell Shire, and the East Gippsland Shire.
“We’re holding back on these four areas for now given they’ve had a confirmed case in the past fortnight, just so that our team can investigate them a little further and be totally sure there is no further community transmission from these cases.
“Once we are sure of that, we can be in a position to add these areas to the list of hot spots removed in four weeks, that’s likely to happen, but it’s not something we are confirming today.”
Read the full story here.
10KM BUBBLE RULE ‘AN OPTION’
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has flagged moving to the next step on Victoria’s recovery road map even if key trigger points aren’t met.
But Prof Sutton again warned the 5km limit rule could be extended, saying there was good health reason to do so.
Prof Sutton wouldn’t give a prediction on whether or not the limit would be lifted, but said there was good reason to keep it in place as it sends a strong message.
“The issue is that we just have a dozen local government areas where cases are active,” he said.
“Movement across the whole of metro Melbourne means that you’re introducing the virus into places that have had no transmission, where potentially the behaviours are different, where the complacency about having had no cases for weeks on end means that there could be really explosive transmission again, and the issues of introducing it into new settings across metro Melbourne.
“We are literally shrinking it down incrementally. We are not seeing that postcode-to-postcode movement of new cases. So I accept the limitations of the 5km rule, essential work doesn’t get constrained by it, but I think it is constraining some of the transmission by virtue of where you can meet someone in an outdoor setting.”
A 10km limit could also be an option, Prof Sutton said.
“I don’t think we’re going at all in a direction that would make it tougher but going out to 10km is a consideration amongst all options,” he said.
It comes after Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday warned the controversial 5km travel rule could be extended beyond October 19 if it is still “relevant” to the coronavirus fight.
Mr Andrews said the restriction — which applies to metropolitan Melbourne — had a clear purpose and “might be extended” despite the daily number of cases trending down.
The rule has been derided by people fed up with doing “loops” within their 5km zone, while a leading epidemiologist said it had become increasingly irrelevant because most COVID-19 cases were confined to aged care.
Its possible extension followed wild scenes at the weekend when hundreds of revellers gathered at St Kilda beach, many without masks and flouting social distancing rules.
Mr Andrews said on Sunday that while he had not been involved in discussions about increasing rules to stop gatherings in bayside areas, the 5km bubble could remain.
“I can’t put a timeline on it but those rules serve a really important purpose and they’ll be in place for as long as that purpose is relevant and proportionate — the benefit is relevant and proportionate — to the challenge we face,” Mr Andrews said.
“There will be a time when that (5km rule) can come off, but exactly when that is — or it might be extended — when that is we can’t be certain now.”
The contentious rule was to be removed once the state reached a 14-day rolling average of fewer than five cases, and fewer than five mystery cases, which is on track to occur before October 19.
According to the government’s coronavirus website, there will be “no restrictions on leaving home” at this point, when step three of the state’s recovery road map is enacted.
Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said the Premier needed to ensure Victorians got their lives back, not keep them locked up indefinitely.
“Daniel Andrews needs to stop making threats based on his ego and start listening to the experts who say it’s time to safely ease restrictions, including the 5km rule,’’ he said.
“To keep all Melburnians locked up because of the actions of a few would be an outrage.
“This is the bloke whose incompetence created our second wave. Andrews should be begging Victorians for forgiveness, not threatening to keep us locked up for longer.”
Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, said with numbers so low, maintaining the rule would be “largely irrelevant.”
“More than 90 per cent of new cases now are linked to outbreaks, largely associated with permitted workplaces and aged care,” she said.
“If the clusters are contained at the secondary case level with a very rapid and comprehensive response, then the 5km rule is largely irrelevant.
“If people are breaking the 5km rule now to do things not permitted under current restrictions, then threatening to extend the rule is unlikely to be an effective deterrent.”
She said continuing to keep “families and friends from enjoying the very small freedoms to catch up” and stopping businesses from reopening wasn’t viable.
STAGGERING DEATH NUMBER AUSTRALIA AVOIDED
More than 16,000 people would have died if Australia had a coronavirus outbreak similar to the levels experienced in England and Wales, new modelling shows.
The research, published in an article in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday, used mortality data at the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in March and April to calculate the number of excess lives that would have been lost if Australia’s coronavirus outbreak was widespread as in the UK.
The modelling calculated that there would have been an extra 16,313 deaths in Australia.
This would have been made up of 9295 men and 7018 women.
But instead, by May 24, there had been 103 COVID-19 attributed deaths in Australia.
The article said that the Australian rate of COVID-deaths was 15 to 20 times lower than that observed in countries across Europe and America.
“However, as the second wave in Melbourne has shown, it is important not to become complacent,” the article said.
The UK has recorded 42,350 cases where people died after contracting coronavirus. Of that number 37,606 of those occurred in England, and 1,630 in Wales.
In Australia, 894 people have died from COVID-19 complications since the start of the pandemic.
SURVEY TO CHECK AGED-CARE PANDEMIC READINESS
The rights of older Australians are being ignored and the system designed to keep them safe is failing them, according to a new report.
The Grattan Institute research found entrenched ageist attitudes were adding to issues within the sector, rife with staffing and regulation issues amplified during the pandemic.
The report argues the sector needs to be overhauled to put the rights of our most vulnerable front and centre, including thousands more home care places to be delivered rapidly.
“We actually have to recognise that older people have a right to home care just as we’ve got a right to medical care,” Grattan Institute health program director Stephen Duckett told the Herald Sun.
“Older Australians are often seen as a burden and no longer valuable or contributing members of society.
“They are pushed out of sight and out of mind. The result is the shameful mess we have today: a top-down, provider-centric aged-care system that is underfunded, poorly regulated, and failing older Australians.”
Carers Australia has called for the government to ensure no older Australians who have been approved for home-care packages wait more than 30 days to receive assistance.
The federal government has been under increasing pressure over its handling of the crisis in aged-care facilities, where more than 640 Victorians have so far died.
The royal commission last week found the government had no plan to deal with the virus in aged-care facilities and staff members had been left “traumatised”.
Federal government data obtained by the Herald Sun revealed at least 78 of the 117 aged-care providers with confirmed cases at the start of August reported feeling prepared to the regulator as part of a self-assessment earlier in the pandemic.
Just one aged-care provider admitted they needed to improve their practices in the phone survey relied on by the aged-care watchdog to judge readiness.
Opposition ageing spokeswoman Julie Collins said relying on a survey to ensure preparedness was “not good enough” and called on the government to boost the regulator’s power.
“It is clear the aged-care regulator doesn’t have the powers and resources it needs to ensure older Australians are receiving high quality aged care,” Ms Collins said.
The Aged Care and Safety Commission visited just 13 of the 117 homes between March and August to check facilities as a result of the phone survey.
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