Six cases, two deaths; Chadstone ‘under control’ as DHHS races to contact-trace Kilmore locals
The manager of a Chadstone butcher shop at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak has been rushed to intensive care for the second time as Daniel Andrews says the cluster is “under control”. It comes as contact tracers race to test residents in the regional town of Kilmore after a local cafe became a “highly risky transmission site”.
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The manager of a butcher shop at the centre of Melbourne’s Chadstone shopping centre outbreak has been rushed to ICU for a second time after testing positive for coronavirus last week.
The Butcher Club owner Peter Robinson said the 53-year-old Chadstone store manager had “come good” after testing positive on September 28 but had “taken a turn for the worse” on Tuesday.
“We’ve had a bit of a hiccup with the manager — he was taken to hospital to ICU in an ambulance the first time around just after he tested positive but had come good, but he’s taken a turn for the worse yesterday,” he said.
“Doctors were thinking about putting him in an induced coma, but they’re happy with his progress now.”
Mr Robinson said the manager would remain in ICU at Dandenong Hospital for the next two days and in care for another seven days.
It comes as Victoria recorded six new cases of coronavirus, along with two deaths, a woman in her 80s and a man in his 90s.
Metropolitan Melbourne’s 14-day rolling average finally dropped to single digits and now stands at 9.9.
Regional Victoria’s 14-day average remains unchanged at 0.3.
No new cases were recorded in regional Victoria on Wednesday, with just two active cases outside metropolitan Melbourne.
Currently 16 people are being treated in hospital for COVID-19, with two receiving intensive care.
There are 206 active cases, which is a rise of six overnight, with four of Wednesday’s cases linked to outbreaks.
There are 26 healthcare workers among the active cases, along with 58 active cases in aged care and one in disability care.
16,429 tests have been processed in the past 24 hours.
There are twelve mystery cases in metro Melbourne and none in regional Victoria.
Of Wednesday’s six new cases, there are two cases in Glen Eira and Whitehorse and single cases in Banyule and Greater Dandenong.
Six active cases are linked to Electra Park Medical Centre Ashwood.
Five active cases are linked to the Springvale shared accommodation outbreak.
Premier Daniel Andrews has denied the state will reopen on October 19 but says authorities will look at the data and that the lockdown strategy is working.
“But ultimately the biggest thing everyone can do and arguably the most important thing that people can do, if you’ve got symptoms, please get tested and please get tested today.”
CHADSTONE CLUSTER ‘UNDER CONTROL’
Premier Daniel Andrews says the state’s public health team say the Chadstone Shopping Centre cluster has been contained.
Jeroen Weimar, Commander of Testing at DHHS, said it had been a particularly challenging outbreak, but more than 1300 people had been tested in Chadstone over the past few days with help from a walk-up and drive-through testing centre.
Anyone who visited Chadstone Shopping Centre between September 23 and October 1 is being urged to get tested, even if they have the mildest of symptoms.
There are currently more than 230 people isolating in Kilmore following cases linked to the Oddfellows Café.
“Our message remains for people working at Chadstone, for people who have shopped at or been at Chadstone in the last 10 days, if you have any symptoms, no matter how slight, you should come forward and get tested, at Chadstone or nearest to where you currently are,” Mr Weimar said.
However, he reinforced that the Oddfellows Cafe in Kilmore was a highly risky transmission site.
Anyone who visited Oddfellows Café in Kilmore between September 30 and October 3 is classified as potential close contacts and should come forward for testing, even without any symptoms.
There are two positive cases in Kilmore and two testing sites have been set up in the area.
“We just want to ensure whether you’ve picked up a takeaway coffee, whether you went there and had a meal, if you’ve had any contact with the cafe over the three days from September 30 to October 3, we’d like you to go and get tested.”
Mr Weimar said “At this stage we have clear indication of where the infection source was from. We believe the waitress would have contracted it from the indexed case.”
CONTACT TRACERS RUSH TO TACKLE KILMORE OUTBREAK
DHHS officials said contact tracers were all over Kilmore’s coronavirus outbreak “like a rash” after the contact tracing system was upgraded in recent weeks.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said a person tested positive to coronavirus in Kilmore after a close contact from the Chadstone cluster dined at the Oddfellows Cafe on September 30.
A cafe worker and another close contact of the traveller, both of Kilmore, have now tested positive.
Police have refused to say if they would fine the person linked to the Chadstone coronavirus cluster who travelled to regional Victoria and infected two locals.
The cluster — linked to the Butcher Club outlet at Chadstone Shopping Centre — has grown to 31 after a further three cases, and includes eight staff, 11 family and household contacts, and four customers.
Commander of Testing at DHHS Jeroen Weimar said they had contacted 177 customers of Oddfellows Cafe in Kilmore in the past 24 hours after a worker tested positive for COVID-19.
The customers have been instructed to self-isolate and get tested for the virus.
More than 200 people in the regional town, which is 60km north of Melbourne, came forward for testing on Tuesday.
“We are spending a huge amount of time and energy (on contact tracing), we have 2500 doing nothing but chasing the coronavirus around the state,” Mr Weimar told 3AW.
“We’ve got systems being developed out of our ears. We’ve got a great system upgrade that we did about four or five weeks ago.
“What it means is Goulburn Valley Health, our local contact tracing team, have been all over Kilmore like a rash for the last day and a half.
“They’re got a hold of all those 177 people, they’re making sure they’re getting tested.
He continued: “We weren’t able to focus on individual cases like Kilmore four weeks ago because we were dealing with tens and hundreds of cases.
“Now we’re down to those last few, we’ve got to jump and stamp them really hard.”
The infected diner is believed to have also travelled to Benalla on the same day and visited White Line Tyres.
Prof Sutton said the traveller had a valid reason for being in the area and was “not aware” they were potentially infectious, but they broke Melbourne’s stage four lockdown by dining at the regional cafe.
KILMORE LOCALS ANGRY OVER OUTBREAK
Locals in Kilmore have voiced their anger over the regional town’s coronavirus outbreak and fear the area could be placed back in a harsher lockdown.
Judith Robertson, who runs the Royal Oak Hotel, said the regional community are “upset and angry” over the cluster.
The two positive cases identified in the area are linked to the Butcher Club Chadstone outbreak after a person connected with the cluster had lunch at Oddfellows Cafe in the town while travelling from Melbourne to Benalla.
Ms Robertson, who has leased the country pub for the past seven years, said her business won’t survive another lockdown.
“I can’t do it again financially. The bills keep coming in and they keep piling up. You’re allowed to get back out there and open up again just to get knocked down. It’s awful,” she told the Herald Sun.
“It’s not just me, there are so many people who are suffering as well.
“As long as you stick with the rules and you’re careful, we shouldn’t have this problem. None of us like it but we have rules we need to follow.
More than 200 people were tested in the regional town, which is located 60km north of Melbourne, on Tuesday and large numbers have been queuing up at a testing clinic in the town since news of the cluster broke.
“Generally, people are just upset and angry. We’ve done the right thing by Mitchellshire and it’s just taken one person who didn’t follow the rules to put us all at risk again,” Ms Robertson said.
Natalie Fialkowski, acting manager at the Fox on the Run Motel, fears the outbreak could affect regional tourism to the town.
“We were just starting to get more calls again from regional Victoria, people wanting to travel down to Kilmore,” she said.
“I’m scared now that because of this cluster, people are going to change their minds and say they don’t want to come here. We’ll just have to wait and see what this brings.”
“We’re very frustrated. We’ve been trying so hard here to get it all back to normal but unfortunately it only takes one person. It shows how quickly someone could catch it - all she did was go in for lunch.
“Fingers crossed it doesn’t go backwards but if we do get more cases, I’m not sure if there’s a way to stop it from going backwards.”
— Sharon McGowan
PREMIER FLAGS FLAGS RE-OPENING BORDERS
Premier Daniel Andrews has flagged trying to open borders by the end of the year.
“The Prime Minister has indicated his very clear preference and I agree with him, that we should try and have borders open by the end of the year ... I won’t make it specific to any one state.
“I understand why other states have done what they’ve done. I think it would be logical to assume that if the circumstances had been reversed, we would have done the same thing. So I know it’s been challenging, particularly for those who live on the border, but you can understand why that’s been done.
“I think our aspiration should be by the end of the year we could have a different set of rules.”
Mr Andrews said he would like to have much more movement within Victoria by the end of the year and movement across the country, if possible.
“You might be able to travel interstate but you might have to take a COVID test first and you might have to wait the 24 hours,” he said.
“Or we might have one of these rapid testing technologies fully proved up with enough stockpiles to be be able to do a test and 30 minutes later you are free to fly.”
He said he was confident people would want to see the borders open as as quickly as they could safely be opened.
CHIEF HEALTH OFFICER HITS BACK AT HANDLING OF OUTBREAK
Prof Sutton hit back at comparisons of the government’s handling of the Chadstone outbreak with NSW Health’s rapid response in tracing contacts from the Crossroads Hotel cluster, near Sydney.
“There’s no country in the world that has gone through a second wave of this size as successfully as Victoria has,’’ he said, warning Melburnians “to be prepared for whatever may come” as the countdown continues to October 19, when restrictions were flagged to ease.
“We all want to get to a point where we’re satisfied that we know we’ll go to the next step, but absolutely no one wants us to fail in this space … so we just have to bear that in mind, and we have to take that next step at an appropriate time when it is safe and when it’s steady,” he said.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the outbreak highlighted just how quickly the virus could spread. New testing sites were opened in Kilmore, and door knocking was being conducted at Chadstone Shopping Centre in a bid to unearth any further infections.
“The fact that (the outbreak) can go from Frankston to Benalla all the way up in the northeast, that just speaks as to how wildly infectious this virus is,’’ Mr Andrews said.
A Victoria Police spokesman would not say if the infected person would be fined but advised they had “not received a referral in relation to this matter. We understand the matter is being assessed by the Department of Health and Human Services at this stage.”
Victoria on Tuesday recorded 15 new cases and one death.
EPIDEMIOLOGIST URGES TESTING ASYMPTOMATIC VICTORIANS
One of the country’s top epidemiologists has said Victoria should start testing asymptomatic people in a bid to stamp out coronavirus.
Mary-Louise McLaws, epidemiology professor at UNSW, said testing levels had declined by about a third across the state since last month and testing rates needed to increase.
“It’s a very slow battle but you are winning. I would suggest that Victoria needs to start doing some more testing … the more you know about where these numbers are popping up, the better you’ll know about it,” Prof McLaws told 3AW.
“In Victoria, NSW and South Australia, testing has declined interestingly. Victoria only started to decline in the week of Sept 12. It needs to get back up, it’s declined by about a third.
Asymptomatic (cases) are about 20 per cent of all cases. They are less likely to spread by about 44 per cent than symptomatics … they could explain a slow decline in numbers.
“It just feels like you’re trying to walk through cement. It’s so slow, but it is happening.
Prof McLaws, who is also an adviser to WHO’s Health Emergencies Program Experts Advisory Panel, also said if the reproduction rate of the virus remained over one, there would be a risk of another outbreak.
“(Reproduction rate) is not the best for predicting where the epidemic is going but it’s certainly an indication,” she said.
“It raised its head about one around October 4 and you’ve got to make sure it doesn’t keep doing that. The last time it did that was during May when I started to notice a rising and falling of the (reproduction rate) and then a change in the 14 day average, when it started to become greater than five cases — those two things together represented a problem.
She added: “If the reproduction is over one consistently, sadly no you don’t (have grounds to lift restrictions). You need to go out and super test the population”.
PM’S COUGHING FIT CAUGHT ON CAMERA
Scott Morrison has battled through a coughing fit on live television as he tried to sell the Federal Budget.
During an interview on Sky News on Wednesday, the Prime Minister coughed into his elbow and took sips of water between talking points.
“This important plan for our recovery and for rebuilding the economy,” he said, wheezing.
“There are swings and roundabouts on the assumptions and we’ll see how they live out in time,” before coughing again.
Sky News chief news anchor Kieran Gilbert came to Mr Morrison’s rescue offering him some water.
“Let me get a bottle of water for you because you’ve had a busy 24 hours and I know what it’s like,” Gilbert said.
“Busy talking,” Mr Morrison replied.
“Exactly, when you get a frog in your throat,” Gilbert said.
Mr Morrison later struggled to stifle the cough, apologising, before erupting into another fit.
At the end of the interview, Gilbert thanked Mr Morrison for “battling through the frog”.
“Thanks for that, I’m fine now,” the PM said.
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