Is Covid still lurking in Victoria? Absolutely, says testing chief

There are ‘absolutely’ still significant numbers of unidentified cases of coronavirus in the Victoria.

Police pepper spray protesters during a rally at state parliament in Melbourne against Covid restrictions on Tuesday. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Victoria’s Commander of Testing and Community Engagement Jeroen Weimar has warned that there are “absolutely” still significant numbers of unidentified cases of coronavirus in the state, despite four consecutive days without any new known cases.

Mr Weimar’s comments came as Victoria’s number of known ­active cases fell to 38 on Tuesday, down from 87 a week prior and 49 on Monday, and as police arrested 404 people amid a violent anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne’s CBD.

“We’re really encouraged by a number of days of zero cases (but) none of us believes that we’re over this,” Mr Weimar said.

“We still believe there are significant levels of COVID cases out there in the community. We have to continue to be very alert to those, and if we can ensure that we manage those outbreaks really quickly, then we can continue to ease off the restrictions.”

Asked whether he was saying there were cases in Victoria that weren’t showing up through testing, he replied: “Absolutely.”

Mr Weimar made reference to Victoria’s most recent case with no known source, detected in a person in Deer Park, in Melbourne’s west, on ­October 30.

He said the community and all close contacts and their close contacts had been isolated and tested, with no subsequent positive results, including at schools attended by the case’s younger siblings. “If you see the fact that we still have the Deer Park case that cropped up last week, we’re doing the genomics at the ­moment to see where that came from, but it’s a bit of an unexpected development that we hadn’t seen coming.

“I’m confident we’ve got (38) active cases that we know about. There will be other cases out there in the community. They may be asymptomatic. They may be at a very low level, they may not be.

“It’s our job to be really vigilant, but that’s why for all of us Victorians, we can’t now get into a mindset that says, ‘Oh well, it’s probably over, so now I don’t need to bother getting tested any more’,” Mr Weimar said.

“The aim is aggressive suppression, and if you look at the scale of the testing operations, if you look at our test, trace and isolate system, if you look at the way we manage outbreaks, we’re all about aggressive suppression.

“We are not heading for elimination. None of us should think that we’ve just dealt with it. There’s a long way to go.”

Just two people are in Victorian hospitals with coronavirus, down from a peak of 675 in August.

Despite the positive case numbers, Melburnians are still subject to a 25km travel limit and trips to regional Victoria are banned until at least Monday, with gyms yet to reopen and hospitality venues limited to 10 patrons per indoor space and a maximum of 20, but up to 50 outdoors.

Victoria Police said it was “disappointed” after arresting “a large number of protestors who again showed disregard for the safety of the broader community and directions of the Chief Health Officer”.

“Officers arrested 404 people and are issuing 395 penalty notices for a range of offences including not wearing a mask, breaching public gathering directions, travelling more than 25km from home, assault police and failing to state their name and address,” a police spokeswoman said.

“A female senior sergeant was conveyed to hospital with a suspected broken arm following an arrest.”