Victorians in the dark on latest Covid deaths, hospitalisations as figures not updated

Victorians have been left in the dark on the latest Covid deaths in the state, with the Andrews government blaming a “technical issue” and “error”.

Victorians are being kept in the dark on the latest Covid deaths and hospitalisations in the state, with the Andrews government failing to update its health website this week with the most recent figures.

The government last Friday released a statement saying while it would no longer send weekly email updates and tweets to update the Victorian public on the Covid situation in the state, “the Victorian Department of Health will continue to report on key figures and trends online each week”.

A government spokeswoman confirmed to the Herald Sun last Friday this would be the case; stressing it was only its regular Friday media email updates and social media updates that would cease as of July 28.

But Victorians took to social media on Friday August 4 to say the website had not been updated this week as promised.

Inspection of the website by the Herald Sun on Friday night revealed the latest Covid case, hospitalisation and death numbers in the state were uploaded on July 28 at 9.45am — and applied to the week before.

The Victorian government appears to have ceased all public Covid data reporting. Picture: David Crosling

Furthermore, Victorians pointed out a notice had been posted on the site at one stage stating: “This is a historical snapshot from July 28, 2023; the page below will no longer be updated”, and went on to advise that to access the latest Covid data for the state, Victorians should instead search the federal government’s Department of Health and Aged Care website.

A Department of Health spokesman told the Herald Sun on Friday night that notice had gone up “in error” and had since been removed.

He said the website would be updated next week.

“Victoria’s Covid-19 metrics will be published on Monday. The delay was caused by a technical issue. An update to the coronavirus website, which suggested reporting had ceased, was published in error,” he said.

But some on social media were not happy.

“This is not good enough,” one angry Victorian said on Twitter.

“I’ve just had a look at the Aus website and how do you get info from graphs? I’m on a phone with not great eyesight and it’s impossible. Plus average deaths — how insensitive.”

Another person said: “Oh wow. Thanks (Premier) Daniel Andrews and (Health Minister) Mary Anne Thomas for removing this data and my immunosuppressed partner and my ability to try and protect him by ascertaining the level of risk in the community. “Doing what matters’ no longer applies to medically vulnerable people. Shameful!”

Others remarked it was “disappointing” and the “non reporting only makes for their objective to be the three monkeys”.