Box Hill Hospital worker spread virus in wards then through northern suburbs
A worker at Box Hill Hospital was patient zero for the outbreak now spreading through the northern suburbs. Here’s a detailed look at how the virus is infecting families.
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Victoria’s health authorities have locked themselves into two different testing races through the city’s northern suburbs.
Armed with the names and addresses of close contacts most likely to have caught COVID-19 from some of the 39 cases already identified, five public health teams are knocking on doors to undertake targeted coronavirus tests.
At the same time they are pushing for about 3500 northern suburb residents a day to race to 15 testing sites for wider screening, backed by community leaders.
After telling Premier Daniel Andrews the public health team needed “another day at least” to determine if outbreak was under control, testing commander Jeroen Weimar said only the results of the two testing programs would confirm whether lockdown could end.
The outbreak has now been confirmed as having started when a patient in Box Hill Hospital’s COVID ward infected two staff members.
One of them then worked while infectious on a different ward, and transmitted COVID to another staff member and a patient.
The northern suburbs cluster, which centres on the East Preston Islamic School and Croxton special school, has spread to 11 households.
Two were added on Saturday during targeted doorknocking of 250 close contacts of the schools, prompting a “cautious pause” on easing restrictions.
The testing also uncovered links to Regis aged care home in Macleod, where two staff tested positive after being identified as close contacts of an infected student.
Department of Health and Human Services teams had another 60 households to visit on Sunday and, if they return further positive tests, a new round of targeted testing may follow.
“Last week there were six households with 36 people in close contact. It was stable and had not spread out to other facilities or households,” Mr Weimar said.
“What we have seen over the last four days has been significant links through to school settings.
“In the past 24 hours they have identified three positive cases, all children from the schools and all within the close contacts circle.”
Because all of those households are identified as contacts and the families have already been placed in isolation, fresh cases through their testing may not impact Melbourne’s re-opening.
But Mr Mr Weimar warned the same may not be the case if mystery COVID-19 cases were identified through community testing in Dallas, Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows, Preston and West Heidelberg.
“The purpose of the wider community testing approach - the reason why we were asking people particularly associated with the schools or who is remotely symptomatic in the northern suburbs, to get tested - (is) we want to understand if there are any other index cases out there or any other links,” he said.
Although the same testing approach had been able to ease concerns and open up Kilmore and Shepparton in a matter of days, Mr Weimar said the greater size and density of Melbourne’s northern suburbs meant it was a longer and more complex effort.
To build a groundswell of support for the testing effort, East Preston Islamic School and the Preston Mosque have dedicated 15 staff to directly contact families identified on the DHHS data set, driving a 60 per cent increase in testing over the recent days.
Community leader and Islamic Museum of Australia founder Moustafa Fahour said the community’s response had been overwhelming.
“We all want to get this in control, we all want to be out of this lockdown,” Mr Fahour said.
“Having that trusted voice as a point of contact...In the end, it doesn’t matter whether it is the northern suburbs or any other suburbs, I’m sure everyone else would be doing the same thing because we all want to go back to our normal lives.”
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