Victoria records another day with no new coronavirus cases, no new deaths
An infectious diseases expert has revealed the secret behind Victoria’s success as the state celebrates 14 days with no coronavirus cases.
Victoria’s 14-day rolling average has dropped to zero after the state recorded a fortnight on no new cases.
The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the state’s 14th straight day of zero new cases and no deaths on Friday morning.
The number of active cases remains steady at three, while there is just one infection from an unknown source.
A total of 12,001 tests results were received in the past 24 hours, down from 20,819 on Thursday.
The last positive cases of coronavirus in Victoria were on October 30 when four infections were recorded.
Victoria hasn’t recorded 14 or more consecutive days of zero new COVID-19 cases since between February 1 and 21.
Victoria has recorded 20,345 coronavirus cases and 819 deaths since the start of the pandemic, with 19,523 people having recovered as of Friday.
Two Victorians are in hospital with coronavirus.
The time between when a person is exposed to the virus and when symptoms first appear is typically five to six days, although it may range up to 14 days, which is why people who may have been in contact with a confirmed case are being asked to self-isolate for 14 days.
Doherty Institute director Professor Sharon Lewin said Victoria had now gone one incubation period without any new infections.
“Incubation periods are the time between someone being exposed to coronavirus and having symptoms,” she said.
“I think a big secret to our success is coming out of our restrictions slowly to make sure there is no silent transmission and we’re doing that by extensive testing, high awareness and still with mask wearing.
“Brett Sutton will make the policy on masks but I’d imagine they’re not going to be with us forever.
“We don’t need them if there is no community transmission but it will take a little bit of time to have confidence to know there’s no community transmission.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said masks were a low cost but very high return measure.
“They won’t be with us forever but so long as they serve a really important purpose as a kind of insurance policy (they will),” he said.
Mr Andrews praised Victorians for the “impressive” number of tests being taken despite cases being low.
“We’re heading towards a week of not only zero cases but perhaps more testing that we’ve done for quite some time and that is a very impressive thing,” he said.
“We’ve seen test numbers this week that have been truly impressive and they really are the key to us keeping those numbers low.
“It means that we can be clear on where the virus is, where it isn’t, and put a public health response around every single person who tests positive.
“It really does give us great confidence that because of the sacrifices and the hard work that every Victorian has made we can keep these numbers very low.”
The Premier said the aim was not to have zero cases every day but to have as low a numbers as possible to stop the spread of the virus.
“Fourteen days of zero is not the same as having a vaccine and it’s certainly not indicative that there’s no virus out there,” Mr Andrews said.
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