Victoria records 1838 cases, five deaths as Burnet Institute says high infections won’t impact lockdown exit
Mildura will be plunged into another snap lockdown from midnight, after 12 new cases emerged in the area. The move comes as Victoria recorded its highest ever daily case tally.
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Mildura will be locked down again from midnight, with 12 cases in the area prompting the snap move.
Meanwhile Shepparton and Moorabool will exit lockdown at midnight after being ordered to stay at home for seven days.
Covid cases continue to climb in regional Victoria, with 18 cases in Geelong, 15 in Colac, 11 in Baw Baw and 10 in Ballarat.
There are also new wastewater detections in seven regional cities, including Portland, Apollo Bay, Aireys Inlet, Cobram, Wonthaggi, Swan Hill and Ballarat.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said on Friday afternoon the Mildura LGA would revert to the same restrictions as Melbourne, excluding the curfew.
“If you’re in the Mildura Rural City Council area, please follow the lockdown restrictions, get tested if you have symptoms, and get vaccinated if you haven’t already,” he said.
“We’ve seen regional communities get through an outbreak so we know it can be done — it’s vital we protect the local community and the rest of regional Victoria from significant outbreaks.”
In Mildura, nine active cases had been reported as of Friday, with three further cases identified late in the day.
Among the cases is a male offender who tested positive to Covid-19 while in custody at Mildura Police Station on Wednesday.
Multiple police officers have been identified as close contacts and ordered to isolate.
A significant number of police have been redeployed to Mildura as part of the NSW border patrol operation.
Police would not confirm how many officers were in quarantine but said the station remained open.
“The Mildura community can be assured that service delivery to the public will remain unaffected during this time,” a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.
Prof Sutton said public health teams were concerned about onward transmission in the Mildura and had determined that the seven-day lockdown was needed to limit growth in cases.
Victoria has recorded 1838 cases and five deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
The surge in new infections is the highest daily tally recorded since the pandemic began.
There were 36,600 vaccines administered on Thursday and 77,554 test results received.
The state now hosts 16,823 active infections.
Victoria’s vaccination rates are now at 85 per cent first dose and 56 per cent fully vaccinated.
There are now 620 Victorians in hospital with the virus, including 114 in ICU and 76 on ventilators.
Treasurer Tim Pallas said just eight per cent of those in hospital with Covid-19 were fully vaccinated and about 66 per cent had not been vaccinated, while 26 per cent were partially vaccinated.
And from midnight on Friday, directions banning people from removing their mask to consume alcohol outdoors will be removed.
It comes as just seven per cent of 10,000 recent Covid-19 cases in Victoria were fully vaccinated, as experts predict new infections will soon begin to fall.
New data from the Department of Health revealed 79 per cent of new infections in the week to Tuesday were unvaccinated.
Fifteen per cent were partially vaccinated, while only 7 per cent had received both doses.
“This is unfortunate because it’s despite the fact that 87 per cent of the cases were eligible for vaccination at the time they were diagnosed with Covid-19,” acting chief health officer Professor Ben Cowie said.
FACE MASK MANDATE FOR STUDENTS
Victorian students in grades 3 to 6 will be required to wear a face mask in classrooms as schools start to welcome children back.
Chief health officer professor Brett Sutton flagged the new rule on Friday, saying schools needed to adopt “appropriate measures” as more students returned.
But face masks for children in prep and grades one and two would only be “strongly recommended”.
“There is good evidence to support this decision,” Professor Sutton said.
“We have certainly seen in cases such as England and the UK where schools reopened without strong mask use from the get go … there was an estimated 8 per cent of students absent from school in those early weeks with suspected or confirmed Covid.
“In many states in America, school mask mandates have been put in place and they have helped to reduce transmission.”
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said it would help mitigate the risk and “keep a cap on transmission” rates in schools.
REGIONAL VICTORIA RECORDS ONE DEATH
A woman living in regional Victoria is among five people to die from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours.
The woman from Shepparton was in her 70s.
A man in his 80s from Brimbank in Melbourne’s west, a woman in her 80s from Whittlesea, a woman in her 70s from Knox and a man in his 70s from Moreland also died overnight.
WHERE VICTORIA’S CASES WERE FOUND
The majority of the state’s Covid-19 infections continue to emerge in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, accounting for 7100 active cases in Victoria.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said cases in the city’s north represented 42 per cent of Victoria’s new cases on Friday.
In the city’s west, there were 553 new cases, which was 30 per cent of total new cases.
There were 424 new cases in the southeast and 107 cases were from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
In regional Victoria, there were 113 new cases, which was six per cent of total cases.
TREASURER DEFENDS PREMIER OVER FOOTAGE
Treasurer Tim Pallas has defended Daniel Andrews over a video of him walking across a carpark in Melbourne without a mask.
Police are investigating the incident.
But at Friday’s Covid-19 press conference — with Mr Andrews absent — Mr Pallas said the Premier had always been “diligent”.
“I have had a brief look at the footage and it looks like he is approaching a camera for the purpose of doing a piece-to-camera,” he told reporters.
“You are allowed to not wear a mask for that.”
BORDER PATROLS SCALED BACK
Hundreds of police will return to normal duties as the force scales back its NSW border operation.
Victoria Police has revealed the dedicated border operation, involving 300 members, will cease on Tuesday.
Local police will still patrol the borders to ensure permit conditions are adhered to.
“Due to updated health advice, Victoria Police will be scaling back its enforcement at the NSW state border,” a Victoria Police spokesman said.
“The police presence will gradually reduce over the next few days and as of Tuesday, the dedicated border operation with more than 300 police will come to an end.
“After that point, Victoria Police will use its local resources to patrol the border to ensure ongoing compliance with the permit conditions.
One hundred police will be redeployed to patrol the metro regional border in Victoria and the other 200 officers will return to their original duties or Covid-19 enforcement operations.
‘NO RISK’ TO ROADMAP
Meanwhile, the Burnet Institute – which was tasked with driving Victoria’s road map out of lockdown – said the state was on track to meet targets despite record daily case numbers.
Mark Stoove, the head of public health at the medical research institute, said the road map was not currently at risk of alteration.
Prof Stoove said recent cases – which had stabilised between 1000 and 1500 – were still “within the bounds of our modelling”.
“I don’t see any reason why the government would want to change its road map at the moment,” he said, adding that he expected daily case numbers to decline in the next week or two.
“Our latest look at the data in NSW actually suggests that the comparable vaccine coverage we’ve got in Victoria at the moment was clearly responsible for the bending of the curve in NSW.
“I think Victorians should be reasonably optimistic about where we’re heading at the moment.”
Ten dedicated vaccination pop-up clinics will also be rolled out across the state specifically for people with a disability.
Disability Minister Luke Donnellan announced the $5m program in a bid to boost low vaccination rates across the cohort.
As at September 30, more than 71 per cent of Victorian NDIS participants aged 16 and over had received their first dose compared to the national rate of 67 per cent.
Mr Donnellan said current rates were “just not acceptable”.
“We can’t open up when we’ve got people living with disabilities, with vulnerabilities, if they’re not at a higher rate of vaccinations,” he said.
Of Thursday’s 1638 cases, 566 were detected in the northern suburbs, 485 in the west, 351 in the south east and 114 in the eastern suburbs.
Regional Victoria recorded 115 cases in the past 24 hours, with 707 of the state’s 15,074 total active cases outside metropolitan Melbourne.
There are 564 Victorians in hospital with Covid-19 including 115 in intensive care and 74 on a ventilator.
BOOSTER SHOT BACKED FOR SOME
The nation’s expert immunisation panel is on the verge of recommending a third Covid-19 shot for some Australians.
The Herald Sun understands a decision could be announced as early as Friday, with people who are severely immunocompromised urged to get another vaccine dose.
Pfizer supply will be offered to most people, with the recommended interval expected to fall between two to six months after their second Covid-19 jab was administered.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation in September revealed it anticipated a “relatively small cohort of individuals, such as those with severely immunocompromising conditions” were likely to require a third dose.
This is in step with the US, where the drug regulator in August amended both Pfizer and Moderna authorisations to enable certain immunocompromised people to get an additional dose.
However, Australian authorities are not expected to announce a decision on booster shots for the rest of the public country until November.
WOOLWORTHS BANKS ON RAPID TESTS
Rapid antigen testing has been keeping Woolworths operating during the state’s latest Covid outbreak.
The supermarket giant has performed more than 60,000 tests at its distribution centres since mid-September and found 18 positive results.
These people were then asked to do more detailed PCR tests, similar to those used at state centres, and 10 tested positive.
Woolworths believes the tests have helped them prevent new Covid exposures at their distribution centres, which are needed to stock supermarket shelves.
Rapid tests are increasingly being rolled out across Victoria and can return a result within 20 minutes.
Woolworths Group Covid response lead, Ross Spencer, said the tests help them find the virus among workers without symptoms.
“This is key when dealing with the Delta variant,” he said. “We’re conducting tests with our team members every day before they enter our distribution centres.”
MAN ACCUSED OF JAB-FOR-CASH SCHEME
A Melbourne father has been accused of a jab-for-cash scheme where he was paid to get a Covid vaccine on behalf of another man who is believed to have needed it for his job.
Timothy Murphy, 36, allegedly pocketed $300 to attend the 10.50am vaccination appointment for another man at the Direct Chemist Outlet in Dingley Village on September 28.
Police allege Mr Murphy purported to be the man, rolled up his sleeve and received a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Read the full story here.
PROTEST COPS IN HOSPITAL WITH COVID
Two police officers who worked at violent anti-lockdown protests in the city have contracted Covid, with two becoming so ill they had to be hospitalised.
It is believed the two officers, who both come from an inner-city police station, contracted Covid after working at a series of demonstrations in September.
Another 23 police officers from that station have been stood down from frontline duties to undertake a 14-day quarantine after being exposed to the virus.
The Herald Sun understands those 23 are vaccinated and have all returned multiple negative tests.
Read the full story here.
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