Covid-19: Victoria records eight cases on Friday

Two more teachers at a school west of Melbourne have tested positive for Covid-19, exposing thousands of students to the Delta strain.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar. Picture: Supplied

Two more teachers at a school 60km west of Melbourne have tested positive for Covid-19, exposing thousands of students to the Delta strain and bumping the number of cases recorded on Friday to eight.

As Victoria bunkers down under the state’s fifth lockdown, contact tracers have identified seven rings of transmission linked to three Sydney removalists and a Broadmeadows man who breached isolation after returning from NSW.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar confirmed after Friday’s Covid-19 briefing that two more teachers had tested positive, exposing 2,300 students at the Maddingley campus.

There are now four teachers from the school who have tested positive.

The first teacher to test positive is a man in his 50s who lives in Barwon Heads who went to the Geelong v Carlton match at the MCG.

Prior to the match he and his footy mate – a man in his 60s who lives at the Ariele apartment complex in Maribyrnong in his 60s – went for beers at the Young and Jackson pub in Melbourne’s CBD.

After the game, the Bacchus Marsh teacher went home to Barwon Heads and now three members of his household, including a child, have contracted the virus. This cluster increased by one case on Friday.

Also drinking at the Young and Jackson last Saturday were two men in their 30s who have now contracted the virus.

One is an ADF member who lives at the naval base HMAS Cerberus on the Mornington Peninsula and the other is an officer worker in Richmond.

Of the eight new cases reported on Friday, three are linked to the Geelong v Carlton match at the MCG last Saturday.

These include a man in his 30s who is a staff member at Trinity Grammar in the east Melbourne suburb of Kew. He also attended the Wallabies game at AAMI Park.

Other cases linked to the game include a man in his 20s from Montmorency in Melbourne’s northeast and another man in his 20s from the far southwest suburb of Point Cook in far southwest Melbourne, who works at the Sanctuary Lakes Hotel.

Authorities previously reported a nine-year-old child contracted the virus at the game.

The number of cases linked to the Ariele apartment complex in Maribyrnong has increased by one, bringing the cluster’s total to seven.

The new case is a close contact of a positive resident who lives in the building. All positive residents have been moved to hotel quarantine.

There remain 106 residents at the Ariele apartment complex, 104 of which have tested negative.

About 90km southwest of Melbourne, Deakin University closed three buildings at its Waurn Ponds campus for deep cleaning after a staff member tested positive.

Deakin University has closed three buildings at its Waurn Ponds campus, about 90km southwest from Melbourne, after a staff member tested positive.

Vice-Chancellor Iain Martin said the infected staff worker had been at buildings 1C, 1B and JB between 9am and 3pm on July 14 but had not taught any students.

“We have identified a small number of close contacts on campus and have already advised those people to isolate and get tested.”

The family member of a senior student at a school in the regional city of Ballarat, about 115km northwest of Melbourne, has tested positive for COVID-19.

“This is obviously an unsettling time for us all but particularly the Clarendon family as they navigate the next few days,“ said principal David Sheppard.