“I’m not in a position to be able to confirm that but I can say that thanks to the hard work of those Victorians who are coming forward and getting tested.“I think we are well placed. However, I’ve never been one to try and make bold predictions.”He said “things are going well” and acknowledged that the “challenging” and “painful” wait, but said authorities had to let the situation unfold.“It’s safe to assume that we will wait as we always have to have the most contemporary picture, the most data and evidence as to what is going on out there,” he said. “It’s best if I answer it this way, as soon as we can possibly give Victorians news one way or another, we will.”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he can’t say if lockdown in Victoria will end on Wednesday night
PSYCH WARDS IN LOCKDOWN AFTER CASE CONFIRMEDThe new confirmed local infection was the case under investigation on Sunday, Mr Andrews said.“She is asymptomatic — she was swabbed four times over the 13th and 14th of February, invariably returning both negative and weak positive results,” he said.“Given her exposure and the variability of those results, a public health team have taken the most conservative approach and have deemed her a positive case. “That, I think, is the appropriate way to go, to be as conservative as possible so that we can isolate her close contact, the secondary contacts, and test them.”The woman attended a family function on Sydney Rd in Coburg, and had also worked in a psychiatric unit at The Alfred, along with psychiatric wards at the Northern Hospital in Broadmeadows.Those wards have been locked down, with healthcare workers now in isolation.
“Even though this individual’s result is unclear, we are assuming, for the purposes of contact tracing and a rapid response, that she is in fact positive,” Mr Andrews said. “Those services have had those wards locked down. Staff, all those that she may have come in contact with, they are all isolating and have been tested, and we will be able to update you both on testing performance and results for primary close contact and secondary close contacts over the hours and days to come.”One of the “priority cases” being followed up by the health department is the three-year-old child, who attended the function in Coburg.Testing commandander Jeroen Weimar said the child attended Glenroy Central Kinder and the Goodstart Early Learning Centre in Glenroy over three days last week.“101 primary close contacts over those two kindergartens … have been isolating,” Mr Weimar said. Meanwhile, Mr Weimar urged anyone in the Coburg and South Melbourne areas to go and get tested if experiencing symptoms, after “wastewater detections” in the local catchments. “That advice continues for all Victorians,” he said.NZ TRAVELLERS MUST GET TESTED, ISOLATEThe Premier confirmed a flight landed in Victoria from New Zealand on Sunday, with 152 travellers on board. It comes as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered Auckland into a snap lockdown for the first time in nearly six months, after three coronavirus cases emerged in the community.“We are following up on each of those passengers as we speak and have been throughout the evening,” Mr Andrews said.“To determine firstly, are they still in Victoria, or have they travelled on somewhere else?”If the travellers are still in Victoria, they are being asked to test and isolate until they receive a negative result.
New Zealand authorities have implemented a 72-hour lockdown on Auckland after three mystery coronavirus cases were detected in the city.
HOW INFECTED CASE ROAMED FREE FOR A WEEKDozens of people exposed to the British coronavirus strain at a Coburg family gathering were allowed out in public after it took a week to confirm a “weak positive” test result.As details of the latest cases raised concerns of a gap in the containment ring around the Holiday Inn outbreak, Health Minister Martin Foley said it was too soon to know whether Victoria’s five-day lockdown would be extended.The Queen Victoria Market and two tram routes added to the list of exposure sites were late on Sunday.Victoria — which has stopped taking international arrivals — also triggered a political storm after refusing to say if it will take the same number of arrivals it used to when lockdown ends.After the first case was confirmed on February 7, the Holiday Inn outbreak on Sunday rose to 16 cases when the first non-household contacts were confirmed to have COVID-19.
Investigations have now concluded the latest cases — a three-year-old child and a woman — caught the highly infectious B117 variant at a private gathering in Sydney Road, Coburg on February 6. Despite first examining the gathering a week ago when it was revealed a COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria worker had attended, contact tracers ruled it out as an exposure site when the woman tested negative on February 7 — meaning most of the 38 guests did not have to isolate. It was only when another male attendee later tested positive investigators re-examined the woman’s negative test in more detail and found it was actually a “weak positive”.Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton defended the week it took to identify the Coburg risk, saying there had been no reason to isolate guests based on the woman’s initial negative test.
“We do not have exposure sites for people who return negative tests — all we can do is remain alert to any other results that came through to find out how transmission may have occurred,” Prof Sutton said. “The Coburg venue wasn’t in scope because of that negative test the day after the event took place.“It was in getting another case out of that setting that we identified that transmission might have occurred there.”Prof Sutton said false-positives and false negative COVID-19 test results were extremely rare.Health Minister Martin Foley said while almost 1000 close primary contacts linked to the Holiday Inn cluster had been identified and contacted, it was too soon to measure the success of the snap statewide lockdown.
NED-3232-Vic-lockdown-2021
“It is too early to say whether we have been successful but the signs that show Victorians are doing the right thing, supporting each other and our test trace and isolate system is staying ahead of this,” Mr Foley said. Deakin University chair of epidemiology Catherine Bennett said her main concern for the next 48 hours was the cases linked to the “spreader event” in Coburg. “We will know in the next 48 hours how they are going in terms of the ring of contacts,” Prof Bennett said. There are now 21 active coronavirus cases across Victoria.
The Queen Victoria Market and route 11 and 58 trams were added to the list of exposure sites. Elite Swimming in Pascoe Vale, Oak Park Sports and Aquatic Centre in Pascoe Vale, and Woolworths and Ferguson Plarre Bakehouse in Broadmeadows Central were also declared exposure sites.
Victorian COVID exposure sites
NEBULISER PATIENT DEFENDS HIMSELFThe returned traveller who used a nebuliser, which is now at the centre of Victoria’s latest COVID-19 outbreak, says the government hasn’t “tried to get my side of the story”.Speaking to 3AW’s Neil Mitchell, the man, who is in ICU in hospital fighting the virus, said was surprised no one had tried to “get the facts” from more than one source.It comes after Premier Daniel Andrews at the weekend stood by the government’s claims the man didn’t declare the asthmatic device, which the traveller denies. “At the end of the day I hope the government can reach out to a lot more people who have gone through the hotel quarantine program … and continue to improve this,” he said in a prerecorded message.NARRE WARREN CHURCH ‘OBEYS GOD’, NOT COVIDA church in Melbourne’s southeast is under police investigation after 50 people attended a church service despite a statewide lockdown.Footage circulating on social media shows worshippers gathered at Revival Christian Church in Narre Warren indoors without masks, singing and praying on Sunday morning.Outside the church the leader told police “I guess the question is do I obey God, or do I obey man? Because I have chosen to obey God, I will continue to obey God, so the doors of my church will remain open.”
Read the full story here.
HOW THE VIRUS SPREAD
GIPPSLAND PUB BLASTS LOCKDOWNA pub in Victoria’s east has blasted Premier Daniel Andrews five-day lockdown, saying local businesses are “dying here”.The Metung Hotel sent out the tweet on Sunday afternoon, pleading with the government to “let East Gippsland open”.“Dear Dan … Zero cases ever and we are just dying here 350kn (sic) from nearest case,” the post reads.David Strange, who has owned the hotel for 16 years, said it was not about himself or his business, but “the people.”“It’s those who earn living from the pub,” he said.“The staff, the suppliers, the egg lady. When we’re shut, they don’t make an income.“We’ve been through fires and lockdowns … East Gippsland hasn’t had a case ever since this whole thing started. He (the Premier) should let us open.”
Mr Strange, who employs about 43 staff, said many were “devastated” and once again left wondering if they would be able to pay their bills.“Shutting down is a quick and easy solution, but it shouldn’t be – it should be a last resort,” he said.“The whole toll is on people – people are suffering. That’s what it is.“There are so many who rely on us and they’re the ones I really feel for.”Mr Strange said he believed regional Victoria should be allowed to operate like it did when restrictions were eased after the second wave and only serve people from regional areas. “I’m just disappointed that after a year we haven’t got a plan in place,” he said.The hotel continues to state they would only serve locals and people not from Melbourne in order to keep their doors open.Metung and surrounding areas were already doing it tough after the 2019-20 summer bushfires, which ravaged local towns, and relies on tourists over the warmer months to support businesses.
ANDREW BOLT: ‘TOUGH GUY’ DAN IS JUST A SHAMIf Premier Daniel Andrews is so good at fighting the coronavirus, why is Victoria so bad?Shouldn’t voters judge this premier not on his A-grade spin but D-grade performance?Andrews is popular for being the toughest premier, yet is the least effective.No other state has had so many lockdowns — three now — or had its citizens locked down for so many months.
Read the full column here.
The Splash
TIM SMITH: VICTORIA STILL EMBARRASSINGLY BEHIND On Sunday, NSW had zero active cases of the virus. In fact, Sunday marked 28 days without a locally acquired case of coronavirus in NSW, the first time they achieved this since the pandemic began.On January 11, NSW had 201 active cases of COVID-19. All this was achieved since their December outbreak, without a statewide lockdown and silly directions like mandatory masks outdoors.Compare that to the omnishambles that is our state’s tragic response to this virus — 22 active cases from yet another avoidable transmission at a quarantine hotel and Victorians are once again locked up, children to be schooled at home, and businesses closed for the first time since October.But it doesn’t have to be like this.
Read the full column here.
VICTORIA’S RECOVERY LAGGING BEHINDVictoria’s business recovery is lagging behind the rest of the country, new figures reveal.Australian Taxation Office data showed by the end of last year there were still more than 650,000 Victorians having their wages subsidised through the JobKeeper scheme, down from 1.1 million earlier in the year.The 44 per cent drop between October and December in Victoria paled in comparison with the 60 per cent fall in NSW and the 70 per cent plunge in WA.
Full story here.
— Additional reporting: Tamsin Rose and Olivia Jenkins
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