Coronavirus: Victoria on track to reopen despite record cases

Daniel Andrews says Victoria is on track to reopen on schedule despite the state breaking the record for highest daily caseload ever recorded by any state or territory in Australia.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in Melbourne on Tuesday. Picture: David Crosling

Daniel Andrews says Victoria is on track to reopen on schedule despite the state breaking the record for highest daily caseload recorded by any state or territory.

Health authorities said the 1763 cases recorded on Tuesday – a jump of nearly 400 from Monday – could be linked to superspreading at the AFL grand final weekend as the number of CFMEU officials with Covid rose to seven.

The record caseload came as Josh Frydenberg was forced into isolation after one of his staffers tested positive after attending the federal Treasurer’s Hawthorn East electorate office.

Mr Andrews said Victoria was on track to hit the 70 per cent ­double-dose target – the trigger for ­lockdown ending – by October 26 but urged against complacency ­towards lockdown rules by an ­increasingly fatigued community.

“I get that there’s fatigue out there but we just don’t have the option to convince ourselves that it’s over because we desperately want it to be,” he said. “We’ve got to get those vaccination numbers and the protection that comes with that to the highest level we can.”

He said health authorities would target 27 postcodes across the state with a first-dose vaccination rate below 75 per cent, including Campbellfield in the north, Frankston North in the far southeast, St Kilda in the inner southeast and Kensington in the inner northwest.

Health Department secretary Kate Matson said Tuesday’s record numbers were to be expected after health authorities reported widespread non-compliance on the AFL grand final long weekend but the link could not be definitively confirmed. “At this stage, there is significant community transmission so to be able to point to exactly one event – we wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said.

“But it was … a superspreader event in time even if it wasn’t a ­superspreader event linked to … a geographic location.”

With about 38,000 close contacts in Victoria, Ms Matson said the Health Department was now asking close contacts to alert their secondary contacts of their status, meaning not all secondary contacts were on the record of health authorities.

“As stated before, we iterate as the cases increase in terms of our contact management approach,” she said. “So our secondary close contacts may not all be on record as we ask people to advise them and go and get the test themselves.”

Ms Matson said the Health ­Department was prioritising high-risk outbreaks as the state moved away from the goal of Covid zero.

As construction resumed following a two-week halt triggered by widespread industry non-compliance, the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union confirmed seven officials present at the Elizabeth St headquarters during riotous protests in late September had Covid-19, an increase of four.

The virus has subsequently spread to the officials’ family members – including two babies and elderly parents – with Victorian and Tasmanian secretary John Setka blasting protesters as “selfish idiots”.

“The tragedy is that due to the actions of these reckless and selfish protesters, many of these members’ families who have been infected are very sick with the Delta virus,” he said.

Regional Victoria reported 86 cases and La Trobe Valley, 150km east of Melbourne, was released from lockdown at midnight.

There are 517 Victorians in hospitals with 101 in intensive care and 66 on a ventilator.