Coronavirus: Victorians desperately need all the info they can throw at us

An analysis of daily coronavirus press releases shows that while NSW has a handle on the transmission chains and settings related to all of its cases, Victoria does not.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in Melbourne on Thursday. Picture: Sarah Matray

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told Thursday’s daily press conference that he understood there had been “no fantastic revelations on either side” when Department of Health and Human Services and Australian Defence Force contact tracers from his state met with NSW counterparts last week.

But a straightforward analysis of each state’s daily coronavirus press release from Thursday shows that while NSW has a handle on the transmission chains and settings related to all of its cases, Victoria does not, despite recording its lowest daily increase in cases since June 24.

Of Victoria’s 28 new cases on Thursday, “14 of the new cases are linked to outbreaks or complex cases and 14 are under investigation”.

No further information is offered regarding the cases “under investigation”, nor is there any breakdown of the outbreaks to which any of the others have been linked.

The closest DHHS gets to indicating which clusters may have new cases is a list of cumulative case numbers for Victoria’s 10 worst aged-care clusters, and a list of “non-aged care outbreaks with the highest number of active cases”.

At no point is any indication given of how many of the cases in these clusters come from Thursday’s figures, even though DHHS clearly has this information for at least 14 cases.

In contrast, NSW Health says of that state’s five new cases on Thursday: “Two are returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, two are locally acquired and linked to a known case or cluster, one is locally acquired with their source still under investigation.”

Of the locally acquired cases, we are told: “One new case is a healthcare worker from the Concord emergency department. They were in isolation while infectious. There are now 21 cases associated with the Liverpool/Concord ED cluster, including eight staff.”

“Another new case attended the Eastern Suburbs Legion Club. They were in isolation while infectious. There are now nine cases in this cluster.

“The locally acquired case under investigation is from the Murrumbidgee Local Health District.

“While a subsequent test on the person has produced a negative result, NSW Health is taking a cautious approach and asking the individual and close contacts to remain in isolation, while further testing is undertaken.”