Snap lockdown for Shepparton, mandatory jabs for essential workers

Greater Shepparton will enter a seven-day lockdown from 11.59pm tonight after a spike in cases. It comes as authorised workers were ordered to get a first Covid jab dose by October 15.

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Victoria’s chief health officer has called a seven-day lockdown for Greater Shepparton from 11.59pm on Friday, October 1.

The restrictions will be the same as those in place in metropolitan Melbourne, with the exception of a curfew.

Under lockdown restrictions there are six reasons to leave home: for essential goods and services, caregiving or compassionate reasons, authorised work or permitted education, exercise, social interaction in limited groups, and getting a Covid-19 vaccine.

Locals have been told they can only leave Greater Shepparton and travel elsewhere in regional Victoria for limited reasons, such as authorised work.

They have also been told to be on high alert for symptoms.

A statement from the health department said: “The public health teams have significant concerns about onward transmission and have determined that the seven-day lockdown is needed to limit growth in cases, as it did in City of Ballarat, Greater Geelong and Surf Coast Shire”.

Testing clinics open this weekend in Shepparton are located at GV Health and the Shepparton Showgrounds, with an additional testing clinic also located at the Northern Oval in Kyabram.

More than 49 per cent of the Greater Shepparton population are fully vaccinated.

The LGA will enter its lockdown five hours after the LGA of Moorabool, which began its seven-day lockdown at 7pm.

Greater Shepparton exited its last lockdown on September 15.

Shepparton is going back into lockdown. Picture: Wayne Taylor

MANDATORY JAB FOR ESSENTIAL WORKERS

Hundreds of thousands of Victorians will be forced to get vaccinated against Covid “if they want to continue working”, Premier Daniel Andrews has announced.

Mr Andrews on Friday said every Victorian worker on the authorised worker list would have to be vaccinated or won’t be able to work onsite.

The Premier said the vaccine mandate would help avoid Victoria’s hospital system becoming overwhelmed.

Authorised workers must be fully vaccinated by November 26.

“This is critically important to keep case numbers down,” Mr Andrews said.

“This is not about stopping people going to work.

“It’s about making sure we can open up.

“It’s about making sure people can go to work, that they can be safe, and that we can defend and deliver our roadmap for opening.”

Authorised workers include professional athletes, state and federal MPs, actors, journalists, lawyers, police officers, faith leaders and personal trainers.

It comes as Victoria recorded 1143 new local cases and three coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours.

There were 34,935 vaccines administered and 62,883 test results received.

The state is at the tipping point of the latest spike in Covid cases, with leading epidemiologists warning numbers could “spiral” in the coming weeks if second Pfizer doses were not ramped up in hotspot areas.

Concern is mounting over the virus’ growing transmission rate after 1438 new Covid cases and five deaths were recorded on Thursday.

Premier Daniel Andrews during a press conference in Melbourne on Friday. Picture: Daniel Pockett

REGION FORCED INTO LOCKDOWN

The Moorabool local government area - which includes Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, Myrniong and Blackwood - will be forced into a snap lockdown as cases in the shire, 90km west of Melbourne, continue to grow.

The lockdown rules include the five reasons to leave home, but the shire’s 35,000 residents won’t be subject to a curfew, like those living in Melbourne.

Mr Andrews said short lockdowns had been effective in other regional areas.

“These lockdowns have been effective in first bringing stability to case numbers and then driving those numbers down,” he said.

“But on advice and careful analysis that’s been done of the number of cases in that local government area, it is unavoidable that a lockdown must be applied to that community.”

The lockdown will come into effect at 7pm on Friday.

COVID TESTS BEFORE GAT EXAMS

Students completing the General Achievement Test (GAT) in Victoria will be “strongly encouraged” to get a Covid-19 test before their exams next week.

Students within the priority areas of Brimbank, Casey, Darebin, Hume, Melton, Moreland, Whittlesea and Wyndham will be urged to get the test this weekend before attending the GAT.

The state government has established additional capacity to accommodate the tests and there will be two sites running at the Melbourne Showgrounds and the Coolaroo mass testing site.

A hotline has also been set up for students who have questions.

“We’re really keen to ensure the GAT can be conducted as safely as possible and this is a really important step to ensuring that,” health department deputy secretary Naomi Bromley said.

VICTORIA GETTING BACK ON THE TOOLS

Restrictions on the Victorian construction industry will ease from October 4, with strict requirements in place for workers.

All workers will need to continue to carry an Authorised Worker Permit and must have had at least one vaccine dose.

Every site in Victoria will have a designated, fully trained Covid-19 marshal to ensure compliance.

Up to five workers and a supervisor will be able to work onsite for small scale construction projects.

Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan announcing construction industry restrictions will ease from nect week. Picture: Daniel Pockett

Large scale sites can have up to 25 per cent of workers onsite.

If tea rooms meet best practice and the entire workforce is fully vaccinated, large scale construction sites can have up to 50 per cent of workers onsite.

Projects on the State Critical Infrastructure list will operate at 100 per cent and fully vaccinated workers can travel between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Hundreds of construction workers tested positive to Covid-19 in the lead-up to the industry being shut down last month.

Treasurer Tim Pallas between August 5 and September 20, there were 337 cases connected to 154 building sites.

He said it was vital the industry was shut down to restart and reset.

“The vast majority of the sites, and the COVID-positive cases involved in outbreaks were in metropolitan Melbourne but we did see evidence of the leakage into regional Victoria as well,” he said.

WHERE FRIDAY’S CASES EMERGED

• 410 in Melbourne’s north, with 243 in Hume, 83 in Whittlesea, 49 in Moreland, 21 in Darebin and 24 in Yarra

• 239 in Melbourne’s west, including 55 in Melton, 54 in Wyndham, 70 in Brimbank, 23 in Hobsons Bay and 37 in Moonee Valley

• 66 cases in Melbourne’s southeast, with 41 in Casey and 25 in Greater Dandenong

• 20 in Melbourne’s east, with 11 in Knox and nine in the Yarra Ranges

• 62 new cases in regional Victoria

VICTORIA LAUNCHES MODERNA BLITZ

Victoria will soon launch a Moderna blitz after receiving an extra 88,000 doses of the vaccine.

Premier Daniel Andrews said there would be a number of sites focused in the south-eastern suburbs to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

“The best defence or the best thing we can all do to drive case numbers down or stop them from spiralling upwards is to get vaccinated,” he said.

DAN LOOSENS NSW BORDER RULES

Victoria will relax controls at the NSW border after months of restrictions between the two states.

The Premier flagged the imminent relaxation of many requirements on people returning from north of the Murray.

He said people would still need to be double vaccinated and receive a negative test before returning.

“We want to make it as easy as possible, but safe, for people to return back to their home, whether that be in regional Victoria or metropolitan Melbourne,” he said.

Mr Andrews said he would make a further announcement next week.

VICTORIA REACHES JAB MILESTONE

More than half of Victorians are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

At least 50.2 per cent of Victorians have received both doses of their jab.

Some 81 per cent of the population have received a first dose.

“That makes us one of the most vaccinated places anywhere in the world and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who is doing that,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.

Data analyst and creator of covid19data.com.au Juliette O’Brien said second doses were the key to driving down Victoria’s spiking Reff number of 1.3.

It’s predicted that 10 people with the virus will spread it to 13 others.

Ms O’Brien said if nothing changed, Victoria faced an average of more than 2000 daily cases in about three weeks.

She said vaccination efforts in hotspots needed to ramp up as the state neared the halfway mark like New South Wales did when they peaked at 1603 cases on September 11.

The northern state reached their 50 per cent target by September 16 when 1,351 new Covid cases were recorded and have since seen a steady decline in case numbers.

“The problem for Victoria right now is exactly what NSW was facing a couple of months ago,” Ms O’Brien said.

“The impact of vaccines in NSW is unmistakeable. NSW flooded the LGAs of concern with Pfizer and now, four to six weeks later, cases in those areas are plummeting.

“We know the second dose gives greater protection, so you’d have to say anything that gives more protection will help drive down cases.”

Melbourne University’s head of school of population and global health Nancy Baxter said the coming days would be “critical” in determining the true impact of Thursday’s jump.

“We’re going to see exactly how bad a situation we’re in,” Prof Baxter said.

“It’s hard to know what’s going to happen based on this 500 blip.

“The next week will tell us whether cases keep spiralling because of breaches over the long weekend.”

Prof Baxter warned Victoria could surpass predictions made by Burnet modelling — which estimated the state would peak between 1400 and 2900 cases per day by mid October — if more clusters emerged following the grand final long weekend.

Concern is mounting over the growing Covid transmission rate after 1438 Covid cases and five deaths were recorded on Thursday. Picture: Daniel Pockett

“Those parties will have spread out throughout Melbourne and result in a rapid increase in cases that will lead us to be worse off,” she said.

“What happens over the next few days is going to be really critical in terms of deciding whether we’re going to stay more at the mid range, around 2000 cases, because we’re not going to stay at 1400 anymore.”

It comes as the state’s Covid commander, Jeroen Weimar, revealed six out of 10 cases on Thursday were found in new households.

The location of cases also spread further than usual, with 29 per cent of the new cases in the east and southeast.

“We have a far greater scattering,” he said.

“Suddenly the map has bloomed and I’ve got all sorts of suburbs (with cases).”

More than 300 cases were detected in Hume and 159 in Whittlesea, in Melbourne’s north, while 83 cases were found in Brimbank in the west.

Mr Weimar said 55 per cent of Victoria’s new cases were men, with a disproportionate increase in people aged between 20 and 50.

Of the new cases, just seven per cent were fully vaccinated, while one third had received one dose.

Mr Weimar urged anyone who attended an illegal social gathering over the weekend to get tested regardless of symptoms.

“You don’t know whether somebody there was harbouring the virus,” he said.