Contact tracers work to control coronavirus outbreaks in regional Victoria
All eyes are on regional Victoria as coronavirus cases pop-up outside the locked-down areas of Melbourne. Here’s why further restrictions haven’t been implemented.
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Contact tracers are working to maintain control of COVID-19 in regional Victoria, with more than 100 confirmed cases outside Melbourne.
The news comes as larger outbreaks, including at Al-Taqwa College and Australian Lamb Company, continue to grow.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he was carefully monitoring the outlook for the regions but was so far satisfied that new cases could be traced back to the state capital.
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“We’re certainly watching the regional cases in Victoria very closely,” he said.
“Again we can see the links back to Melbourne. There’s been some ongoing transmission in households. But we’re not seeing a kind of growth in community transmission in any of those places really.
“Mostly for postcodes across regional Victoria we’re only talking about one or two cases.”
A cluster at Al-Taqwa college, the site of Victoria’s biggest outbreak, is still growing after 183 cases were linked back to the school.
Another two infections were linked to Australian Lamb Company in Colac, taking the meatworks outbreak to 45.
Small businesses in the town have shut their doors or imposed their own restrictions in an effort to stay on top of the virus.
Other new cases were found at Somerville Retail Services in Tottenham, a cluster with 80 infections, and 21 cases are linked to a Woolworths distributions centre in Mulgrave.
A group of five staff at KFC Truganina have also tested positive.
Professor Sutton said workplaces were still a key driver of Victoria’s infection levels, with new regulations and masks for essential workers key to bringing numbers down.
When asked on Saturday if Stage 3 restrictions were likely to continue past August 19, when current orders expire, Professor Sutton said the next few weeks would be crucial.
“We flagged that it was a six-week minimum expectation,” he said. “We have to see what it’s looking like as we get closer to August 19.
“This universal mask wearing, there’s modelling to suggest that can make a significant difference and it would be great to see that.”
Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday slammed Victorians who were refusing to wear masks without a legitimate reason.
“The person at Bunnings who won’t wear a mask, they’ll be happy to have the nurse in intensive care wearing a mask when they need help,” he said.
“Its just not too much to ask.”
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