Covid Victoria: 2 new cases, Melbourne lockdown could be extended again
Two cases of “fleeting” transmission in Melbourne’s Covid outbreak have been deemed false positives, with the state government now facing pressure to justify the extended lockdown.
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This article was published on Thursday, June 3. For the latest news on Melbourne’s lockdown and Covid cases in Victoria, click here for Friday’s rolling coverage.
Two “fleeting” transmission cases partially used to justify Victoria’s extended lockdown were false positives with the state government now under increasing pressure to publicly release its health advice.
An expert panel on Thursday ruled that the cases — a woman who was said to have caught the virus at a display home, and a man allegedly infected while dining outdoors at the Brighton Beach Hotel — were “false positives”.
It came just days after health officials warned that the infections showed the danger posed by the Indian super-strain circulating across Melbourne.
“What we are seeing now clearly is people who are brushing past each other in a small shop, they are going to a display home, they are looking at phones in a Telstra shop – they don’t know each other’s names and that is very different from where we have been,” said Covid-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar on Tuesday.
But the Department of Health said on Thursday that those two instances were “no longer considered confirmed cases”.
“Following analysis by an expert review panel, and retesting through the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, two cases linked to this outbreak have been declared false positives,” a Department statement said.
Both the display home and Brighton Beach Hotel will remain exposure sites because they are linked to other cases, but any exposure sites linked to the two false cases, including all listed in Anglesea, will be “stood down”.
Melbourne University Epidemiologist Tony Blakely said he was hopeful the false positives could result in lockdown being lifted on Sunday.
“It is actually good news, although it doesn’t completely remove fleeting transmissions that are happening, it suggests just maybe we will get out of this lockdown a little quicker.
“I’m reasonably hopeful as a Victorian we could get out of this by the end of the week. I certainly think we are doing all the right things.
“There are a lot of contact sites but they are looking at a slightly better picture tomorrow.”
Former Premier Jeff Kennett said the false positives had needlessly alarmed communities.
“Another “Faulty Towers” example of failure,” he said.
“While thousands of employees stood down. Tragic.”
Victoria’s Opposition leader called for an end to the lockdown if the two false positive cases were the reason behind its extension.
Taking to Twitter, the Victorian Liberal leader said, “if the basis for the lockdown extension turned out to be false, it should end.
“Time for the Labor government to be upfront with Victorians.
“Two of the “fleeting contacts” we were all being scared about turn out not to be Covid cases at all …
“Can the Andrews Labor Government please focus on a plan to end this hugely damaging lockdown?”
It comes as regional Victoria gets set to be freed from harsh lockdown at 11.59pm on Thursday, with eased restrictions to allow cafes and restaurants to operate at a reduced capacity.
Three cases of coronavirus were detected in the community in the past 24 hours, as Melburnians prepare for an extended lockdown.
It’s understood one of those cases is an aged care resident at the Arcare Maidstone facility, which was reported on Wednesday.
Deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng said the three cases identified in the past 24 hours had already been quarantining when they tested positive.
“All were primary close contacts of previously identified positive cases and all were quarantining and in isolation for the entire infectious period, so there are no new exposure sites related to those cases,” he said.
“One is a child of a previously identified case in Whittlesea. One is a staff member from a Port Melbourne workplace.
“As the facility announced yesterday, one person is in their 90s who is a resident at Arcare Maidstone. That brings the number of cases that are linked to that facility to five — four within the facility.”
Addressing concerns authorities had been “scaremongering” about the severity of the outbreak, Prof Cheng said the Kappa and Alpha strains were 50 per cent more infectious than the strain that forced Victoria into last year’s hard lockdown.
“It is not really controversial to say that these variants have been shown to be more infectious,” he said.
“There have certainly been people who have been strangers to each other that have acquired infection from each other — they didn’t interact with each other, they weren’t at the same cafe, they weren’t at the same shop at the same time.
“And really, what that shows is that this is a very infectious virus.
“It is possible that because of our contact tracing and the careful way that we’re taking travel histories from everyone that we are picking up some of these cases that way, so that reflects contact tracing as well.”
Prof Cheng said it was “accurate” to say this variant was more concerning.
“It is more infectious, in the sense that more people get infected for every case, so I think it’s accurate to say that,” he said.
“The other thing that there may be some confusion over: We have talked about the serial interval. This is the time between when the first person gets sick, to the time the next person they give it to gets sick.
“That time is actually shorter when it’s good contact tracing, because people aren’t transmitting on the 10th day of their illness.
“We cut off the transmissibility and therefore that interval looks shorter.
“So again, that’s as a sign of good contact tracing and the fact that we can pick up transmission through relatively fleeting interactions.”
VACCINATING THE ‘ONLY WAY OUT’
Prof Cheng said authorities would consider lifting lockdown early but “today is not that day”.
“We are keeping a close eye on things and it really depends on particularly the number of cases that you have, community exposure. And with the lockdown and contact tracing and so on, that number should decrease,” he said.
When asked if he thought a seven-day extension of Melbourne’s lockdown was sufficient, Prof Cheng said authorities were taking it day by day.
“We really need to look at this every day. It could be shorter, it could be longer, but our best guess at this stage is seven days will be enough,” he said.
“It comes down to the last few people. If the last person with infection is someone sitting quietly at home without any interaction then we will be fine.
“If it’s a young person that has been out and about, then they could potentially spread it and that’s the reason why we have these lockdowns at the moment, to try to reduce the contacts that everyone has to prevent infection spreading on.
“If we could stop (restrictions) earlier, we could. Equally, if the situation isn’t looking good early next week, then we might need to prolong the restriction … But there are a lot of things we don’t know, obviously.”
Prof Cheng said local suppression and stamping out community transmission was the short-term goal.
“In the long-term, really, there are only two ways out — either we get vaccinated or we get the virus,” he said.
“We can’t hold this forever, particularly in the view of what’s happening elsewhere in the world, so we really do need to get this vaccination program out.”
A record 57,519 test results were received, while health authorities administered 23,921 vaccine doses.
Mr Merlino said some countries around the world had fully vaccinated populations, “well over 50 per cent”.
“In England, they are almost at 50 per cent. In the United States, they are at something like 52 per cent. In Israel, it is 57 per cent,” he said.
“There are countries around the world that are easing restrictions and getting on top of the pandemic because they have rolled out the vaccine program.
“We are at 2 per cent. Nationally, we have been woefully, painfully slow. So when we get advice from public health that we need a lockdown it is a lockdown in an environment where only 2 per cent of our population is fully vaccinated.”
LONG WEEKEND RESTRICTIONS
Mr Merlino said he expected to be able to ease restrictions in time for the long weekend but it was too soon to make that call.
If lockdown is lifted, Melburnians will still not be allowed to travel to regional towns over this period.
“The public health advice is that we need to have a period of time, a further period of time where we have different settings between regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne,” he said.
“Unfortunately, that cuts across the period of the long weekend and that is why I will have more to say about what support we will provide for regional tourism and accommodation.
“I know it is an inconvenience for people, I know people have made plans, but the advice from public health is that we just need to keep metro and regional separate for a bit further.”
MANDATORY CHECK-IN FOR TAKEAWAY COFFEES
Mr Merlino said scrapping the 15-minute buffer before people were required to check in at venues was about combatting the more virulent strain currently in the community.
“We did away with the 15-minute time limit. We had that for quite some time on the basis that if you stay in one place for a period of time, it’s more likely that the virus will transmit,” he said.
“What we have seen with this more infectious and therefore quicker variant, you get a number of cases where it is quite a quick transmission or it is a transmission where the individuals don’t actually meet within that environment.
“So therefore the advice from public health is that we need to do away with that 15-minute period.
“So if you are grabbing your takeaway coffee and you are standing for a few minutes as the barista is brewing your coffee, you need to check in.”
RESTRICTIONS SET TO LINGER
Melburnians are expected to be forced to live with significant coronavirus restrictions for weeks to come.
Authorities hope the city’s extended lockdown can be lifted next Thursday, should case numbers drop to one or two a day.
But reduced restrictions will continue until the state records several days of zero cases, government sources say.
“There will be no snapback,” the sources said.
The strategy means while schools could resume face-to-face learning from the end of next week, bars, restaurants, retailers and workplaces will face ongoing density limits, football and event crowds will be capped and masks will remain mandatory indoors.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said that under an “aggressive suppression” strategy, it would not be safe to reopen while community transmission was “grumbling along”.
“It’s driving community transmission back down to zero. We can’t have one or two cases out there and open back up to the kind of settings we had before,” Professor Sutton said. “That’s what led one case from South Australia to lead to 60 cases and thousands of primary close contacts within a month.”
A government source told the Herald Sun it was “extremely unlikely” Melbourne would achieve several days of zero cases before lockdown was due to end next Thursday.
Deakin University epidemiology chair Catherine Bennett said authorities should have a good idea about how the virus was travelling by the end of the week.
“It doesn’t have to be zero cases, but it does have to hopefully have a run of days where we’re not seeing new cases that we can’t either tie in or that were out and about at exposure sites,” Professor Bennett said.
On Wednesday, the government announced Melbourne’s lockdown would be extended another week, until at least June 10.
There were some reprieves, with students in years 11-12 allowed to return to the classroom and some outdoor trades – such as landscapers and painters – allowed to return to work. The travel bubble will also be extended from 5km to 10km for exercise and essential shopping.
Asked if the initial seven-day lockdown was ever going to be enough to snuff out the virus, Professor Sutton said: “No crystal ball-gazing is possible … What’s played out has played out.”
“A week … could’ve absolutely been enough but we’ve seen an explosion in exposure sites and we need to bear that in mind when extending it.”
Professor Sutton said that while cases would be reviewed daily, he remained confident that Melbourne could begin to open up in seven days.
Melbourne’s next step could mimic planned restrictions in regional Victoria, which are likely to be eased from Friday.
“We are pulling up neck and neck with this virus … I have great confidence that we’ll be able to go to eased settings after the end of next week,” Professor Sutton said.
Industry leaders reacted furiously to the extended lockdown, which could cost the Victorian business sector up to $143 million a day.
The state government has committed $460 million to a businesses support fund but has also called on the commonwealth to provide income support amid fears for thousands of casual workers.
A number of businesses on Wednesday also urged the government to consider the reintroduction of rent-relief schemes.
The Herald Sun understands tweaking the disaster recovery payment to help Victorians in lockdown was floated by Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in talks with Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas.
But the state government is strongly opposed to this option because it would require them to contribute up to half of the cost of the payment.
A senior source said income support was the responsibility of the commonwealth, and argued providing payments through the tax office – which handled the JobKeeper subsidy scheme — would be quicker and easier to get the cash to those who needed it.
Acting Premier James Merlino said that if the virus wasn’t brought under control, it would “explode”.
“If we don’t do this, this thing will get away,” he said.
“We’ve got to run this to ground because if we don’t, people will die.
“It’s our most vulnerable – our parents, our grandparents, Victorians with underlying conditions or compromised immunity – it’s those Victorians who will pay the price.”
Even if all goes to plan, travel to the state’s regions across the Queen’s Birthday long weekend has already been ruled out.
Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said lives were being turned “upside down” by the lockdowns and pleaded for the health advice to be released.
“This is going to go from a circuit-breaker to a heartbreaker,” he said.
Mr O’Brien said Victorians deserved a pathway to freedom, but claimed the government had no clear plan or “road map” out.
“You get the impression the government is making it up as they go,” he said.
“They’re stringing us along on a day-by-day basis and that’s not good enough because our lives can’t be put on hold indefinitely.
“After what Victorians have endured for the last 12 months, the bank of trust is pretty depleted with this government.”
RENTERS FORCED TO BREAK LEASES, MOVE
Victorian renters have backed out of leases and moved interstate as a result of the latest coronavirus lockdown, with many left struggling to make ends meet, industry groups say.
It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced a new federal support package of up to $500 for those unable to work because of a lockdown lasting longer than a week.
Besser and Co partner and head of property management Marcel Dybner said he had already spoken to a number of tenants struggling to pay rent while others had gone as far as to leave the state.
“We’ve got one tenant who works in hospitality and has another job as a DJ and all the venues have cancelled on him, Mr Dybner said.
“He’s said to us ‘I can’t risk it anymore, I don’t have any support in Melbourne’ and has decided to move back home to Adelaide.
He said it should not be up to landlords to foot the bill for renters in need of help as a result of the lockdown.
Read the full story here.
EXPERTS QUERY SUTTON’S ALARMING CALL ON VIRUS
Experts have hosed down fearmongering over the strength of the Covid-19 strain that has shut down Melbourne, as authorities maintain it is “more contagious”.
Chief health officer Professor Brett Sutton was forced on Wednesday to defend his description of the Indian strain as a “beast”, after epidemiologists claimed his and other officials’ confronting language was overplaying the severity of the current outbreak.
Government officials had raised concerns that the virus was being transmitted between strangers during “fleeting” contact, including passing each other in shops.
But Deakin University epidemiology chairwoman Professor Catherine Bennett said some of transmissions used as examples, including in a Telstra shop and a Mickelham display home, should not be defined as fleeting.
Read the full story here.
PARENTS, EXPERTS CALL FOR STUDENTS’ RETURN TO SCHOOL
Families and leading experts are calling for all Melbourne-based pupils to return to school, fearing remote learning will once again put them at risk of falling behind.
Year 11 and 12 students and other pupils enrolled in unit 3 and 4 VCE studies will be allowed to return to school in Melbourne, while other year levels will continue to undertake remote learning as Victoria’s fourth lockdown is extended for at least another week.
Acting Premier James Merlino said he wanted to see every student return to the classroom “as quickly as possible”.
“Based on the public health advice for Melbourne, that is years 11 and 12 tomorrow … I want to quickly follow that up with other students and hopefully all students back at school in a very short time,” he said.
Read the full story.
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