Victoria turned down contract tracing and extra PPE support, CMO Paul Kelly says

Victoria has rejected an offer for additional contract tracing help because they don’t believe they need it, the country’s top health officer says.

Chief medical officer Paul Kelly has declared Victoria a hotspot. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Victoria has rejected offers for additional contract tracing help and extra personal protective equipment, the country’s top doctor says.

Chief medical officer Paul Kelly said the state had been declared a commonwealth hot spot, meaning it was eligible for additional support.

“We’ve offered personal protective equipment to Victoria. They don’t need anymore at the moment they have plenty,” Professor Kelly said.

He also said it had offered additional help with contract tracing.

“We’ve also offered support with the contract tracing if that was needed. Currently we’ve been told that that isn’t the case,” Professor Kelly said.

It comes as he urged Victorians and Australians to go out and get the vaccine to protect their loved ones and the rest of the community.

He also said the state government did the right thing when it imposed the circuit breaker lockdown.

“It is clear there has been a super-spreading event from one of the members of the current cluster, especially in the workplace, that points to high risk at this time in terms of transmission through the community.”

He also said the state government did the right thing when it imposed the circuit-breaker lockdown.

But he labelled hotel quarantine as “essentially safe”, despite the latest breach.

“It’s quite clear that aerosols are playing a part to this and so each of the states that have looked at these directly and specifically have made particular changes to their arrangements, they’ve all been a little bit different — but that reflects their own hotels and hotel quarantine systems,” the country’s top doctor said.

He also said in Australia the variant strains were still controllable even if they were up to 50 per cent more transmissible.

“If the numbers remain small, you can still get on top of it,” Professor Kelly said.

Meanwhile Australia’s vaccine logistic boss, Commodore Eric Young, said 110,000 doses were administered nationwide yesterday with more than 30,000 in Victoria.

He said 20,000 “one-off” AstraZeneca doses were delivered today in the state and another 20,000 would be delivered on Tuesday.

Another 70,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine would be going to the state hubs, Commodore Young said.

It comes as Victoria’s state government announced it was widening the vaccine program to include those aged between 40 to 49.