Scene set for lockdown extension after mystery case and grim reality of new cases

A mystery infection, aged care cases and multiplying exposure sites are all factors pointing to an extension of lockdown.

It’s increasingly likely Victoria’s fourth lockdown will be extended beyond this week, however there are good reasons why a final decision is yet to be made.

A dangerous mystery case has seen COVID-19 breach aged care, exposure sites continue to multiply, and a third infectious person circulating for more than 10 days before being tested have emerged.

The grim realities of Monday led Acting Premier James Merlino to start setting the scene for an extension of stay-at-home orders, warning: “I want to be very clear with everyone, this outbreak may well get worse before it gets better”.

Any one of those factors on its own may be enough to trigger the seven-day “circuit breaker” to turn into a longer lockdown, let alone their combined threat.

Signs are pointing to an extension of lockdown. Picture: David Caird

Most alarmingly COVID-19 has shown again how easily it can spread to the most vulnerable in aged care, where there is no room for any risk.

With more than 279 exposure sites and 4200 primary close contacts, the size of the outbreak in the wider community is stretching the boundaries of what even the best contact tracing can contain.

News that one of the latest 11 cases had actually been infected on May 12 – and infectious since May 14 – means those containment lines will have to stretch even further.

Not only do tracers have to identify where that person and their contacts went a fortnight ago, they have to pre-empt exposure sites for their contacts-of-contacts.

But there have also been enough positive signs in the past 36 hours to hint the tide is turning and prevent a longer lockdown yet being locked-in.

Firstly, the number of new COVID-19 cases has not been doubling every few days. although the simple daily tally was never going to the defining factor, the details behind it are reassuring.

All of the latest cases have been among primary close contacts already in quarantine. While there is an insurance ring of secondary contacts already identified and tested, so far none have been positive.

Secondly, the newest cases have all been detected soon after infection. This means there is little chance they were infectious before entering lockdown, raising hopes the number of exposure sites may start to decline.

Whether that drop in exposure sites accelerates in time to end strict stay at home orders may be a long shot, but at least it is heading in the right direction to at least mount a case for a mix of lesser restrictions.