Three new cases of coronavirus case confirmed as Victorian cases reach 15
Victorian health authorities are scrambling to contact passengers on two separate US flights that landed in Melbourne in the past nine days, after two travellers were among the state’s three new confirmed coronavirus cases revealed this morning.
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Three new coronavirus cases have been confirmed for Victoria, bringing the state’s number of cases to 15.
Two of the cases were identified as having travelled from the USA to Melbourne on different flights.
One of those was a man in his 50s who arrived on UA60 on February 29, on the same flight as Toorak’s Dr Chris Higgins, the father of singer Missy Higgins.
He was not unwell during the flight but had mild symptoms afterwards.
That patient attended a winery in Seymour, Wine by Sam, on March 3, taking in a tour and lunch.
He also attended the Nova cinema in Carlton on March 5 for a private screening on The Amber Light before being diagnosed and isolated at home.
The second case was a woman in her 20s who arrived on QF94 from Los Angeles on March 6. She had originally come from Colorado.
A third case, a woman in her 50s, arrived from Iran on a flight from Tehran via Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on March 6, on flight MH0149.
She had been unwell since February 18 while in Tehran with symptoms including a cough and fever.
When the woman arrived in Melbourne a family member took her straight to hospital where she remains in quarantine.
A statement from Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services said there were no public exposure sites for either of the two female cases and that close contacts of all three cases were being advised and monitored.
“The flight manifests of QF94 and MH0149 are being obtained to begin contact tracing of passengers in the same and adjacent rows,” the statement said.
“The department is continuing to work through the flight manifest of UA60 to identify and contact all close contacts.
“For the virus to spread, extended close personal contact is required.
“But visitors to these locations should be aware of the signs and symptoms of COVID-19. “Close personal contact is at least 15 minutes face-to-face or more than 2 hours in the same room.”
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12TH CASE VISITED RESTAURANT
A woman who crisscrossed Australia after arriving from Indonesia was earlier confirmed as Victoria’s 12th coronavirus case.
Victoria’s health department said the tourist, aged in her 50s, was well when she got a flight from Jakarta to Perth on February February 27.
She developed symptoms two days later and then flew to Melbourne on Virgin flight VA682 a week ago.
She also visited the Pho Hung Vuong 2 Vietnamese restaurant in Richmond on Friday, between 6pm and 7pm, before returning a positive test and being placed into self-isolation.
While there is no ongoing risk for patrons of the restaurant, anyone who was present at the during the time the woman dined is asked to monitor themselves for symptoms of coronavirus.
Mr Hunt urged anyone who thought they could be infected to contact their GP.
“If in doubt, get yourself tested,” he said.
“That’s the important message – we would rather, even though it can be a little bit of a stress on the system, we would rather people over-test, rather than under-test.”
After a roundtable with stakeholders on Friday, the federal government is developing a frontline response plan including scaling teleconference abilities from GP consultations.
“It will reduce the load on emergency departments and hospitals,” he said.
The federal government will this week release updated guidelines for doctors, whom federal Health Minister Greg Hunt compared to Australia’s brave firefighters.
“Over summer, our firefighters and our emergency service workers were our heroes,” he said.
“In the coming months, it will be our health and medical service workers who will be our national heroes so we need to support them.”
— The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services’ hotline for public information on COVID-19 is 1800 675 398.
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Dr Chris Higgins was named as the state’s 11th confirmed case on Saturday, without having visited any “high-risk” countries or knowingly coming into contact with anyone with the virus.
Dr Higgins is believed to have become infected with the virus on a recent trip to the US where he visited Denver and Vail in Colorado via Los Angeles.
He is also believed to have only had mild symptoms, such as a runny nose and did not meet the government’s criteria for needing to be tested.
The father of Aussie singer Missy Higgins, Dr Higgins triggered a mass lockdown in Melbourne after being diagnosed with coronavirus.
About 70 patients who saw Dr Higgins between Monday and Friday last week have been ordered to isolate for 14 days, along with clinic staff.
About 100 residents of the Mecwacare nursing home in Malvern were also in quarantine after Dr Higgins visited on Wednesday to treat two residents.
He returned from the United States on the morning of February 29.
The United States is considered a low-risk area, and he says even if he had asked to be tested, he would not have fallen within the minister’s guidelines for testing.
Dr Higgins’ wife, Margaret Higgins, said when he returned from the United States, Dr Higgins described his illness to her as “the mildest cold I’ve ever had”.
Dr Higgins, who also uses his medical skills at Footscray’s Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, had recently travelled to Denver and Vail in Colorado via Los Angeles.
He was there for 12 days prior to becoming ill.
The Toorak Clinic released a statement over the weekend, saying it would be closed until further notice, following Dr Higgins’ diagnosis.
Toorak Clinic spokesman Dr Charles Bush said other doctors from the practice decided to self-isolate pending further advice from the Victorian Department of Health because the safety of patients and the community was their top priority.
“We understand that there is a great sense of anxiety and uncertainty in the community following the outbreak of this virus. For this reason, the practice will remain closed for at least the next week,” Dr Bush said.
“I would also like to thank all those who have called to ask about our colleague Dr Higgins. He is currently doing well and has greatly appreciated the support he has received.
“This is a very difficult time for frontline medical professionals, but common sense and a calm approach must prevail. We will be guided by the Department of Health in Victoria, and at a national level, as we come to grips with an evolving situation.”
CLINICS CLOSE AFTER DOCTOR’S SHOCK DIAGNOSIS
A mother of two who attended the clinic on Tuesday but did not see Dr Higgins, said she contacted the Health Department worried she may have been exposed but staff wouldn’t tell her who the infected doctor was.
She said she was told to self-isolate. “They wouldn’t tell me because they said that would be unlawful,” the woman said. “I had no way of knowing which doctor it was and whether it was the doctor I had seen. I am not very happy about it.”
The woman, a patient at The Toorak Clinic for 25 years, said it was an extremely busy practice, with many elderly patients.
Signs on the nearby Mecwacare aged care home’s doors advised it was closed to visitors after being alerted to the potential contamination risk.
“Visitors are advised that there is a risk of acquiring this illness by visiting the facility at this time,” the sign read.
It said the closure of the home was “a precaution” with no residents or staff showing signs of coronavirus or respiratory or infectious illness.
Australian Medical Association president Julian Rait said it was hard for doctors to know what to do because little was known about coronavirus as it was “evolving and changing daily”.
He said any criticisms of the infected doctor were “unfair”.
“I doubt this poor GP would have met the government’s own criteria for testing and self-isolation,” Prof Rait said.
“It is unfair to apply retrospective judgments about health workers, given the rapidly evolving nature of this epidemic and the prior clinical advice that has been given about who should be isolated and tested.”
Prof Rait advised everyone who felt unwell to “take such symptoms seriously” and not attend work or public areas.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said all 70 patients who were treated by Dr Higgins had been sent a warning text but there could also be other people at risk.
“We will be calling them (his patients) today … everyone will be spoken to individually but some might have come in with other family members who were not on the books as it were,” Prof Sutton said.
He said doctors had a particular responsibility to stay away from work if they felt sick, as they came into contact with some of the most vulnerable people in society.
“I think it’s absolutely imperative that healthcare workers have an understanding of their risk, and of the particular vulnerability of the patients that they’re seeing,” Prof Sutton said.
“In general practice there are lots of elderly patients and these are the very patients who are at higher risk for severe disease. (As a doctor) you have a particular obligation to exclude yourself from work if you’re unwell.
“If you even have an inkling that you might have COVID-19 then you really need to self-isolate, then get tested.”
VIRUS CLINICS OPEN, UNWELL WORKERS TOLD TO STAY HOME
The mass quarantine came as three coronavirus screening clinics were opened on Saturday at the Royal Melbourne, Alfred, Austin and Box Hill hospitals in preparation for a possible pandemic.
Extra nurses were also placed at Melbourne and Avalon airports to support Australian Border Force with health checks for arrivals.
The days of turning up to work “with a runny nose or a cough or a cold” were gone, particularly for healthcare workers, Prof Sutton said.
“We’ve all done it in the past (but) we are now at a stage, with this illness, that we have a particular obligation as healthcare workers to exclude ourselves and assure our patients that we are not a risk to them,” he said.
Coronavirus test results could be returned within 24 hours, he said.
There have been 3000 coronavirus tests in Victoria so far and 2500 negative results.
Dr Sutton said the Department of Education had been advised to tell schools the only places overseas excursions should be planned were Canada and New Zealand.
He said they were the countries he believed had the lowest possibility of infection and that he had most faith in regarding diagnosis and infection control.
It comes as the CSIRO reveals a major announcement about the rapidly-spreading disease could be made this week.
CSIRO scientists had been “working around the clock to get a better understanding of the virus” since last month, a spokeswoman told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“How long it takes to develop and replicate, how it impacts the respiratory system and how it can be transmitted,” she said.
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“Work on developing our preclinical testing model is advancing and we will be in a position to share an update on how this work is progressing soon, as early as next week.”
After being given a virus sample by the Peter Doherty Institute, the CSIRO had cultivated it and grown it to levels that allowed it to understand its genomic sequence and its characteristics.
“This has allowed us to start testing it in the biological models we’ve previously used for the SARS virus and we then hope to test vaccines and therapeutics,” the CSIRO’s Dr Rob Grenfell said.