Melbourne’s new high-risk locations
MANDATORY HOTEL QUARANTINE FOR 70 NSW TRAVELLERSReturned NSW travellers who could not provide sufficient documentation have been made to enter hotel quarantine.DHHS testing commander Jeroen Weimer said 70 people had entered hotel quarantine after arriving in Victoria on flights from NSW.
testing site wait times
TESTING SITE QUEUES BLOW OUT AGAINQueues are building at COVID testing sites across Victoria, with several closed on Saturday morning due to overwhelming demand.Testing commander Jeroen Weimar urged everyone who had been to exposure sites or had symptoms to get tested, but they should be prepared for lengthy delays.“Make sure you are prepared with water and diversionary material to wait out the queues that will be there,” he said.He urged everyone to keep trying to get tested, and to isolate in the meantime.
NSW TRAVELLERS ALLEGEDLY FLEE QUARANTINETwo NSW travellers who allegedly fled from police to dodge hotel quarantine after flying into Melbourne from Canberra will be fined at least $19,000 each breaching coronavirus restrictions.Health Minister Martin Foley confirmed the 26-year-old man and 24-year-old woman had returned to the Goulburn region in NSW after the incident.
Two more people who attended the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant on December 21, before travelling to NSW on December 30, were confirmed as coronavirus-positive on Friday.The two were already in line for a COVID-19 test in NSW on Thursday when contacted by Victoria’s health department in relation to their attendance at the restaurant. However, Victorian authorities were not aware of their positive results until late on Friday as their positive tests were recorded in NSW.The pair have now returned to Victoria to isolate, but had visited Lakes Entrance on December 28 and 29.Mr Weimar said it has been a “phenomenal piece of detective work” for contact tracers to have identified and isolated all the latest cases before they had tested positive, minimising the chances of further spread.However, with the virus having been present for up to a fortnight and its exact source still a mystery, an increase in testing was the only way to determine if it had already spread to other parts of Victoria. “If you’re sitting around any other part of Victoria thinking you’re not feeling 100 per cent, you may be part of that other new chain of transmission that we don’t have identified,’ he said. “The only way we stop these clusters is if
New restrictions in Victoria 31/12
PM: NO BORDER CONFLICTScott Morrison wants “greater consistency” when it comes to border closures, but has stopped short of criticising state premiers who have slammed their borders shut in recent days. The Prime Minister warned that states must balance “the risk of COVID and its transmission against the disruption to people”, stressing that leaders have to explain and be accountable to the public for their decisions. New border restrictions were announced on Thursday; among them South Australia and Victoria shutting out all of NSW and Western Australia closing its border to Victorians. In WA about 16,000 Victorians, who had arrived in the state since Monday, were suddenly forced into self isolation.Mr Morrison also said he eagerly awaited the findings of the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19.“We’re patient and we continue to monitor the progress of that inquiry closely and support its swift conclusion,” he said.NSW announced three new community transmission coronavirus cases on Friday, all from Western Sydney, and investigations were continuing into the source of the infections. There are 144 cases linked to the Avalon cluster.Sydney’s northern beaches remain in lockdown, with stay- at-home rules in force.
Victorian border changes
Q&A for Victorian COVID outbreak
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