Finding link between Arcare cluster and wider community outbreak could help ease lockdown, epidemiologist warns
An epidemiologist has shed light on the one thing that needs to change in order for Victoria’s strict lockdown to end.
If a missing link between a positive case in aged care and the wider community can be found health authorities would be “in a much better position” to release Victoria from lockdown, according to an epidemiologist.
The first case in aged care during the state’s latest outbreak was reported on Sunday – a female worker at Arcare Maidstone aged care facility.
She was not showing symptoms when she last worked at the home on May 27 but later tested positive.
Three of Monday’s five new Covid cases were then linked back to aged care.
Health Minister Martin Foley said one was the son of the first reported case at the Arcare Maidstone facility, while another case was a staff member at the same nursing home who also worked at Blue Cross Western Gardens facility in Sunshine.
The third case was a resident at the Arcare Maidstone home – a woman in her 90s who was asymptomatic and was transferred to hospital on Monday.
The dreaded seeping of Covid-19 into aged care sparked fears Victoria’s seven-day snap lockdown – due to end at 11.59pm on Thursday – would be extended.
But Deakin University chair of epidemiology Catherine Bennett said lockdown could be eased if contact tracers could connect the Arcare Maidstone cluster with the initial network of Covid infections across Melbourne.
“That might just be enough,” she said.
“If they can tie that unlinked cluster with Arcare back to the original network of cases we had prior, then that will take pressure off contact tracers.”
Professor Bennett said she did expect strict restrictions to remain, even if lockdown was eased on Thursday.
“There’ll still be serious restrictions, but if they can connect that Arcare cluster with the wider community then maybe those restrictions will no longer need to constitute lockdown,” she said.
“Masks in all indoor venues will definitely still be needed, but if they’re still finding cases they can’t tie in I expect to see more easing in regional Victorian than in Melbourne.”
Victoria recorded three new local infections on Tuesday after the state posted 11 new cases on Monday.
There is no word yet on whether Tuesday’s cases are linked to known clusters.
Arcare Maidstone and Blue Cross Western Gardens facility in Sunshine went into lockdown on Monday after the aged care cluster emerged.
Another two Royal Freemasons sites were also on high alert after two workers – one from Coppin Centre and the other from Royal Freemasons Footscray – worked at the Arcare Maidstone facility in the past week.
But the two Royal Freemasons sites have since eased their strict lockdown orders after all staff and residents returned negative Covid results.
Victoria was plunged into its fourth major lockdown in 12 months last Thursday after cases rose and the list of exposure sites ballooned.
On Monday, Acting Premier James Merlino warned the outbreak “may get worse before it gets better” as Victorians await whether the snap lockdown will be extended on Thursday.
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