Victoria records 5 new local Covid-19 cases

Victoria’s Covid-19 outbreak has grown to 69 cases as authorities race to figure out how two cases caught the virus.

Authorities are scrambling to work out how two mystery Covid-19 cases were contracted as Melbourne’s outbreak grows, including the number of people suffering the alarming Delta variant.

Victoria recorded five new locally acquired cases on Saturday, bringing the outbreak total to 69 infections.

Three of the five new cases are close contacts of existing cases.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley told reporters one of those cases was the second child of the family of four linked to the North Melbourne outbreak.

Another is a household contact of the first worker at the Maidstone Arcare aged care facility who tested positive but has been isolating throughout their infectious period.

The third is a workmate of a member of the family from the first West Melbourne group, “that is, a colleague of one of the returned travellers from NSW”, Mr Foley said.

The other two cases are a couple from the same household and are currently deemed “unlinked” as it has not yet been confirmed how they became infected.

There were five new locally acquired Covid-19 cases in Victoria reported on Saturday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Covid response commander Jeroen Weimar said one of the pair had “a number of exposures, particularly at Craigiburn shopping centre”, which is on the long list of sites where previously confirmed cases had visited.

“We are so grateful that this individual came forward on the back of the really active, intensive work around that location,” Dr Weimar said.

“We have not yet formally connected that individual to the wider City of Whittlesea outbreak. That work and investigation is ongoing.”

Shoppers who recently attended Epping Plaza have also been put on high alert as the shopping centre was also attended by the new mystery case.

“We have not got a definitive crossover time with known cases, but they did get tested ... because they saw that we had concerns about those settings as potentially at risk for people who pass and have casual contact with others,” Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton said.

That person’s partner works on a large construction site in the CBD, prompting the site to be closed and their 170 workplace contacts to be plunged into isolation.

“They (the construction company) are now of course, since last night, going through the process of contact tracing with us and to make sure we lock all staff down,” Dr Weimar said.

The CFMEU said the woman worked as a cleaner on the Probuild site, had not worked on other sites and contacted her employer after receiving the positive result.

The union said a hospital-grade specialist cleaning company was performing a thorough deep clean of the site.

Dr Weimar said the two cases were “a real priority over the next few days to establish any other downstream infections that may have occurred”.

The Brighton Beach Hotel is where one of the recently established ‘false positive’ cases was believed to have contracted Covid-19 through ‘fleeting contact’. Picture: Google Maps

He said nine of Victoria’s 78 active cases were the concerning Delta variant, up two from Friday.

“One of those is the second child of the second family ... and then one further primary close contact, a workplace colleague of the first case who we identified a few days ago,” he said.

Three other children were earlier confirmed as having the Delta strain, which has devastated India.

An urgent search is now underway to find the source in Melbourne after genetic testing showed the strain had infected members of the family of four who travelled to NSW’s Jervis Bay in late May.

Worryingly, the strain has not been traced back genetically to any existing Delta infections, including those in hotel quarantine.

Infections diseases expert Sharon Lewin said the strain would not have mutated in Australia.

“My strong hypothesis is that it’s come in through an importation from overseas, through our quarantine hotel system - that would be the most likely,” Professor Lewin said.

The variant is different from the rest of the Victorian outbreak, another subtype of the Indian variant, known as Kappa.

Professor Sutton said there was anecdotal evidence the Delta variant was more serious and infectious in children.

“There isn’t much information about severity of illness with this variant, although there are some anecdotal reports of greater illness in children as well as greater increased transmissibility in children … we have concerns for that reason,” he told reporters on Friday.

“However it’s been more reassuring that we tend to see less transmission in school settings and between children.

“But we have to be alive to new evidence and obviously what has occurred here.”

The lockdown remains in place for Greater Melbourne. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

On Thursday night, it was revealed that two people believed to have been infected with the virus through “fleeting contact” had been classified as “false positives” by the health department.

“Following analysis by an expert review panel, and retesting through the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, two cases linked to this outbreak have been declared false positives,” the department said in a statement.

It was initially believed that a woman contracted the virus at a Metricon display home and a man caught it at the Brighton Beach Hotel, which are both listed exposure sites.

At the time, the two cases were thought to be part of a group of at least four incidents where transmission occurred with very limited contact.

Those cases were partially used to justify Acting Premier James Merlino’s announcement on Wednesday that the initial “circuit breaker” lockdown would be extended by another week for Greater Melbourne.

Under the restrictions, people can only leave their homes for one of five reasons: to shop for food and supplies, authorised work and education, care and caregiving, exercise for a maximum of two hours a day and with one other person and to get vaccinated.

Victoria has also recorded one new case in hotel quarantine.

Health department figures show 36,362 test results were received in the past 24 hours and 24,263 vaccine doses administered.

Three cases remain in hospital but none of them require intensive care.