Victorians flouting self-isolation have been hit with hefty fines as the state records 216 new cases
Forty-two people infected with coronavirus or deemed a close contact have been fined for failing to self-isolate in Victoria, with 16 of them copping fines of $4957. It comes as 12 Victorians died of coronavirus in 24 hours.
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Twelve Victorians have died of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, with 216 new cases of the disease detected.
The 12 deaths were three men in their 70s, four women and one man in their 80s, and three women and one man in their 90s. The deaths are all linked to aged care.
It brings the state’s COVID-19 death toll to 363, but the daily total is equal lowest since July 11 — more than five weeks ago.
It is the fourth consecutive day of cases in the 200s, a promising sign two weeks after the second wave peaked at 725 cases on August 5.
Another 82 mystery cases have been added to the state’s tally.
There are 7155 active cases across the state, including 79 active cases in disability facility settings, 19 in transfer facilities, and 60 at NDIS services.
Premier Daniel Andrews said there were now 2050 active cases in the aged care sector and just five of these were in state government facilities.
It comes after Prime Minister Scott Morrison was quizzed on Wednesday morning about responsibility private aged care outbreaks.
The federal government regulates facilities in this sector.
There are 1069 active cases among healthcare workers, and 63 paramedics are off work because of coronavirus, including five who have tested positive.
Victoria has recorded a total of 17,446 cases since the pandemic began.
Stage four restrictions were imposed on metropolitan Melbourne on August 2.
DRIVING TO EXERCISE BAN OVERTURNED
Victorians will be able to drive within 5km of their home to exercise under updated directions to be issued by the state’s Chief Health Officer.
Professor Brett Sutton will alter the public health advice on Wednesday.
It comes after police warned Victorians that under current rules they could not drive somewhere to exercise, sparking complaints and warnings about safety.
When asked about the issue on Wednesday, Prof Sutton said he would discuss the rules with Victoria Police.
PREMIERS WARNED “DO NO HARM” ON BORDER CLOSURES
Border closures between states with little or no COVID-19 transmission must not do more harm than good, with state premiers warned they could further risk the nation’s health.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said in recent weeks the tough restrictions beyond the measures designed to contain Victoria had a “significant effect” on people who found themselves on the “wrong side” of a border.
“It’s a general principle of medicine when you’re doing anything to treat a problem is first ‘do no harm’,” he said.
“That has to be a consideration as well, equally with border closures.”
Dr Coatsworth said while he was confident his state counterparts were being transparent in their medical advice on borders, it was up to premiers to be clear with the public.
“It is clear to Australians now that those border decisions are made by state premiers and health ministers on advice of their chief health officers,” he said.
“And that it’s particularly important that those decisions are justified not just to the people of that state.”
Dr Coatsworth pointed to his own experience working in healthcare in Lismore when patients would often be sent over the border to Queensland for treatment.
“It’s not just a question of being able to switch that off, of course, because these border towns actually depend on cross-border healthcare and they haven’t depended on it for 10 or 20 years, they’ve depended on it for 50 years,” he said.
“It’s the same for the South Australian border.”
- Clare Armstrong
PEOPLE FLOUTING SELF-ISOLATION HIT WITH MEGA FINES
Forty-two people infected with coronavirus or deemed a close contact have been fined for failing to self-isolate in Victoria.
Police have been issued the details of more than 30,000 individuals to check on since April.
While most people have been home during doorknocks, dozens have not and police have fined a 42 people more than $122, 000 failing to self-isolate.
They include 26 people fined $1652 and 16 people fined $4957.
Those fined $4957 were sprung after August 4 when the larger penalty was introduced to deter people from defying stay-at-home orders.
The main reason people left their home was to go to the shops or for a walk, a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.
“Some people claimed they were unaware they had to self-isolate despite testing positive to coronavirus,” she said.
Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said police chasing down isolation breaches were discovering new details such as incorrect addresses of people isolating at different locations.
“Some of them were in the shower when they knocked on the door,” he said.
“Some of them were in the shed out the back building something.
“They’re not all necessarily out of their home.”
Police are currently investigating 98 cases to work out why residents weren’t home when door knocked.
A total of 154 fines have been issued for breaches to COVID-19 restrictions in the past 24 hours.
They include 19 fines for people not wearing a mask and 35 for curfew breaches.
Mr Nugent said he was still surprised by the efforts of some people to pass through restricted areas.
“Driving through a check point that is lit up like Luna Park in a stolen car or a boot filled with cannabis,” he said.
“What were they thinking?”
Among those fined in the past 24 hours was a woman caught without a mask on Spencer St who told police she had been smoking and became distracted when a “bird swooped her associate’s hamburger”.
A man was also fined for travelling from Melbourne to Geelong to go fishing.
VIC CONTACT TRACING TEAM ‘HALF THE SIZE’ OF NSW
Victoria’s coronavirus contact tracing team is reportedly about half the size of NSW despite having almost 28 times the number of active cases.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also revealed he was concerned about the state’s level of contact tracing throughout the pandemic.
But Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton rejected the claim, saying the state had a very large contact tracing workforce.
“We haven’t had half the amount of contact tracers as NSW,” he said.
Victoria’s contact tracing team has struggled to cope with surging cases during the state’s second wave, which has led to long delays in contacting some positive cases and their close contacts, with some people thought to be close contacts not contacted at all.
COMMUNITY TRANSMISSIONS TRENDING DOWN
Professor Brett Sutton said Wednesdays were usually “spike days” and it was a good sign to record a drop in infections.
“We’ll take 216 (cases),” he said
“But we do have to bear in mind that testing numbers have gone down.
“Community transmission is also trending down as we would expect.”
Victoria only recorded an additional four outbreaks overnight, which is one of the smallest increases in weeks.
Prof Sutton said the numbers were trending in the right direction.
“But again, I would like to see a day of zero new outbreaks and very little community transmission,” he said.
Active cases have reduced by 119 in the past 24 hours.
Prof Sutton said the challenges of second waves shouldn’t be underestimated.
“Relatively speaking, Victoria’s done pretty well globally with a second wave,” he said.
But concerns were raised about the state’s falling testing numbers, with 16,109, people getting checked on Tuesday, which is down from the daily average of 20,000.
STAGE 3 RESTRICTIONS ‘ABSOLUTELY MADE A DIFFERENCE’
Stage three restrictions reduced the reproduction number of coronavirus down to almost one from 1.6.
Prof Sutton said stage three restrictions absolutely made a difference and that was visible in the past week.
“So it did work. It wasn’t enough. And it was going to slow transmission to a point but as the premier’s mentioned previously, it would have had a really, really long tail,” he said.
“We would have gone into September, October, November with ongoing cases at reasonably high levels.
“And that is an impossible situation to be in in terms of tolerating, you know, what stage three restrictions represented for us.”
SHORT COURSES PROVE POPULAR
Nearly 25,000 Victorian businesses have used online short courses provided to help them through the pandemic.
A $10 million mentoring initiative will also match up small businesses with professionals to help them adapt and recover from the economic impact of restrictions.
The Andrews Government’s Business Support Fund has handed out more than $1.3 billion across 75,000 small operators across the state.
More than 6900 workers who have tested positive or been a close contact of an infection have received a $1500 support payment to ensure they safely self isolate.
WorkSafe has visited 724 workplaces and issued 62 notices to employers since the workplace inspection blitz started on July 19.
“That takes the total number of inspections since the beginning of the pandemic to some 4911 and 168 notices in total since the pandemic began,” Mr Andrews said.
PUBLIC HOUSING LOCKDOWN COMPLAINTS TRIPLE
Victoria’s integrity watchdog received more than 150 complaints from residents in a Melbourne housing tower locked down for two weeks during the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of complaints has tripled since the original probe into the lockdown at 33 Alfred Street in North Melbourne was launched on July 17.
It comes after the building was surrounded by police and locked down on July 4 without warning amid soaring coronavirus infections.
At the time people reported being trapped in the building and unable to access adequate fresh air, food or medical supplies.
Ombudsman Deborah Glass said some of the submissions to the inquiry were very concerning and called for anyone with a complaint to file it by August 28.
“It is important that we document and understand what happened and learn lessons from what occurred, so that in the future the human rights of public housing tenants are recognised as much as everyone else’s,” she said.
Ms Glass originally launched her inquiry after her office was contacted by 50 residents, prompting her to seek input from residents, Department of Health and Human Services, the Emergency Management Team, Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Community Legal Centres, community groups, and the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
It came after legal expert Jeremy King called for the watchdog to investigate.
Ms Glass will continue to investigate why and how the lockdown happened, the impact on residents and whether it was in line with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act.
She will report to the Victorian parliament.
MIKAKOS DENIES SEEING HOTEL QUARANTINE EMAILS
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos has told parliament that she was not briefed on emails sent by the Australian Medical Association in April raising concerns with the hotel quarantine scheme.
Ms Mikakos was asked during Question Time why she ignored the warnings, but said the letters were not sent directly to her.
“The issues that were raised in that email from a board member of the AMA were, as I understand, sent to an official in the department,” she said.
“It was not an email that was addressed to me, it was not an email that was brought to my attention and it was not an email that I was briefed on.
“I’ve only become aware of this email since media reports on it.
“I actually understand the contents of the email were suggestions rather than criticism.”
Ms Mikakos said the email included mentions of ‘green zones’, where there are intended to be no interactions with possible infections, and that these were already implemented by the time the message was delivered.
RELIEF FOR FARMERS FROM BORDER BANS
Victorian farmers and agriculture workers will be allowed to travel 100km into NSW after crisis talks over border closures.
Under the new rules, Victorian workers will be able to apply for a new entry permit, rather than being forced to travel through major transport hubs like Sydney Airport.
They will be able to travel up to 100km into NSW for work, with those needing to travel further assessed on a case-by case basis.
Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke welcomed the move, following bizarre rules around border closures that could cause a backlog in the supply chain and drive up food prices.
But he flagged ongoing concerns with the South Australian border with restrictions to tighten on Friday.
“As worried as we were about the issues on the NSW border, we are now as equally concerned with the border in South Australia which is unworkable,” he said.
“The South Australian government should immediately look at what’s been introduced on the NSW border and adopt the same approach.
“At the end of the day, it’s about feeding the nation and we can’t have farmers being choked by red-tape.”
State premiers have again been warned by Scott Morrison over their harsh border restrictions.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister said any and all domestic border closures needed to be made transparently and on medical advice.
“I understand what they’re seeking to do, but it’s important that all premiers act on the basis of transparent medical advice,” Mr Morrison said.
“If there’s going to be these border arrangements in place, they will, of course, have very serious impacts on the economies of their states and the livelihoods of those who live in those states and businesses and jobs.
“That all has to be weighed up and that’s the decisions they’re taking and they need to be transparent with the Australian people about it.”
Mr Morrison said he had intervened in the NSW and Victorian border situation to ensure agricultural workers were able to move between the states.
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