Mildura’s lockdown end confirmed

The Health Department has confirmed Mildura will exit its lockdown after the region recorded seven new cases overnight.

Mildura’s lockdown will end at 11.59pm on Thursday, the Health Department has confirmed.

This comes as the city recorded seven new cases overnight, bringing Mildura’s active case numbers to 226.

Swan Hill also recorded one new case overnight, bringing the town’s active case numbers to 31.

Mr Weimar said cases in Robinvale and Swan Hill were linked to the Mildura outbreak, with the virus spreading among the region’s agricultural workforce.

About one third of Mildura’s cases are understood to be in the Indigenous community, however the government has only confirmed four Indigenous cases.

Last week Mallee District Aboriginal Service chief executive Jacki Turfrey said the numbers were “absolutely not right,” though she believed the government was trying to address the issue, including by working more closely with MDAS on contact tracing.

“If they don‘t have line of sight on how many Aboriginal community members are infected, then they can’t actually even understand the implications,” she said.

Ms Turfrey told a community forum on Monday last week that as a group, Indigenous residents of Mildura had a lower vaccination rate than the general population, with about 60 per cent single dosed and 33 per cent fully vaccinated.

Aboriginal people no longer have to book vaccine appointments with MDAS Mildura and can walk-in and have their vaccinations prioritised until further notice.

The outbreak comes after a Dubbo man in his 50s was understood to be the first Aboriginal person in Australia to have died with Covid.

The state government earlier confirmed it was not updating all of Mildura’s exposure sites having learnt from isolating a quarter of Shepparton’s population during its outbreak.

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