Victoria has recorded 19 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours, with all linked to outbreaks.The spike in cases is the largest number Victoria has recorded in more than nine months. The last time Victoria recorded more than 19 cases in one day was September 21 last year, when 28 cases were recorded. At least one of the new cases was reported in the media on Friday, a St Albans Meadows Primary School staff member. More than 47,000 test results were received — the highest number reported this month, beating the previous daily record by more than 14,000. It comes as authorities open a new testing site in San Remo to cope with demand on the Bass Coast after authorities identified numerous tier one sites on Phillip Island. Four-hour long waits at testing siteVictorians have woken up on their second day of lockdown to a growing list of more than 160 exposure sites as the delta outbreak continues to spread. A Docklands office building and a Glen Waverley line train are the latest additions, added after 11pm last night. Forty four suburbs are now home to an exposure site with several regional towns impacted including Barwon Heads, San Remo, Werribee and Ballan. Some Covid testing sites have closed to the public while a regional Victoria centre has a wait time of four hours. Covid testing at La Trobe University’s Bundoora Campus and Chadstone, Golfers Drive, were both at capacity by 8.30am on Saturday morning, shutting to patients. The update — posted to the government’s Covid website — comes after a number of Bundoora locations including DFO Uni Hill and a dental surgery were listed as exposure sites on Friday night. Victorians face a wait time of four hours at Victoria University in Werribee East, while Albert Park, Wantirna Trash and Treasure market warned patients to expect two-hour queues. Victoria facing lockdown extension as exposure sites growVictoria is staring down the barrel of a lockdown extension, with experts and the government hoping for “luck” to avoid weeks of tough restrictions. Fears that people will be confined to their homes well beyond Tuesday have emerged after coronavirus cases spread across the city and state through major infection sites.Ministers and infectious disease specialists have told the Saturday Herald Sun the five-day timeline for the snap lockdown called was “ambitious”.One state minister said we would need “everything to fall our way” to be freed on Tuesday, especially in metropolitan Melbourne.“Let’s hope we’re not having this same conversation in two weeks,” the minister said. Thousands of students are at risk of being infected after teachers at six separate schools tested positive to COVID-19 — St Albans Meadows Primary School, Trinity Grammar, Ballarat Clarendon College, St Patrick’s Murrumbeena, Bacchus Marsh Grammar and Barwon Heads Primary School.In Melbourne’s CBD, work ground to a halt on two Multiplex construction sites on Spencer and Bourke streets after it was revealed an engineer who was positive visited the sites.Royal Melbourne Hospital sent 200 staff home as a precautionary measure after they worked in proximity to a patient who is a close contact of someone who tested positive to the virus.The breadth of the outbreak’s spread – with cases or exposure sites now in areas including Geelong, Ballan, and Phillip Island – is concerning experts but they are buoyed by the fact all cases are so far linked.Two more teachers at Bacchus Marsh Grammar tested positive for Covid-19, exposing thousands of students to the Delta strain and bumping the number of cases recorded on Friday to eight.Two more cases were uncovered at Kew’s Trinity Grammar, taking the total of infected teachers to three, while Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus and Ballarat’s Clarendon College were both linked to positive cases.NED-3889-Melbourne-lockdown-restrictionsContact tracers have now identified seven rings of transmission linked to the three Sydney removalists and a Broadmeadows man who breached isolation after returning from NSW.Burnet Institute epidemiologist Professor Michael Toole said he was optimistic about the capacity to contain the virus in Victoria.But he warned exposure sites like the MCG and the Young & Jackson pub meant a wide spread was likely and keeping to a 5-day lockdown was “ambitious”. “The fact that cases are dispersed all over Melbourne (and beyond) is a worry because you could get new chains of transmission,” he said.Prof Toole said that unlike in Sydney, Melbourne was well placed because of the strength of restrictions – with the only real extra option left in Victoria’s arsenal a curfew.University of Melbourne leading epidemiologist Nancy Baxter said that it is extremely unlikely that Victoria will emerge from lockdown on Tuesday.Professor Baxter said the next few days would prove critical, and said the MCG exposure site was starting to look like “a super spreader event”.“Those highly infectious people were circulating in the community for a good five days,” she said.“I am concerned by the pace of this outbreak – Delta moves fast.“We would be very lucky to get out of lockdown on Tuesday … and Melbourne has not had much luck.”Senior government sources said thinking had not yet turned to the likelihood of moving out of lockdown on Tuesday, with all efforts focused on the current outbreak.It is expected any easing of restrictions would be very gradual, with mask rules likely to remain in place for some time and AFL crowds unlikely to return for several weeks.The AFL will take the unprecedented risk of flying Port Adelaide into Melbourne on Saturday as it continues to explore new ways to complete the 2021 season.The hit-run mission to tackle St Kilda at Marvel Stadium will see Port Adelaide become the first team to be jetted into a virus hotspot since the beginning of the pandemic.The game is being played in Melbourne because South Australian health authorities are comfortable with the fly-in, fly-out scenario.Daniel Andrews has warned a number of factors, including the amount of time cases had spent in the community, would determine how the state was placed to move forward.“We will look at all of that granular data very carefully,” he said.“It’s too early to foreshadow exactly what will happen on Tuesday night … but we want the greatest freedom as soon as we possibly can.”NED-3869-Covid-19-Exposure-Sites-VictoriaRegional towns, including many that have had no positive cases for over a year, remain hopeful they could be freed from the lockdown early.But the Premier said: “if it’s not safe in the view of experts, you won’t see me do it.”“This is not a mission to be popular. This is not about seeking praise. It’s about getting the job done,” he said.Almost 130 exposure sites have so far been identified, with 36 active cases, more than 1500 close contacts and 5000 secondary close contacts in isolation.Opposition leader Michael O’Brien has repeated calls for the release of public health advice which supported the statewide lockdown.SCHOOLS BECOMING LATEST OUTBREAK HOTSPOTSAnother Victorian school staff member has tested positive to the coronavirus, plunging 550 more staff and students into isolation.Staff at St Albans Meadows Primary in Melbourne’s inner north have received an email from principal Stephen Crockford telling them a staff member who was onsite at the school on Wednesday 14 July tested positive on Friday.Parents were also notified that the school has been closed until further notice and no on-site supervision will be offered. Staff and students have been told to get tested, stay home and follow DHHS direction on Saturday.The staff member was not named.The news brings the number of schools directly affected to six, with the cases mostly restricted to teachers. A number of schools such as Trinity Grammar had pupil-free staff meetings on Monday.Debra James, general secretary of the Independent Education Union, said the over-representation of teachers among those who have contracted Covid in this recent outbreak shows that “schools are very high-risk transmission sites and for the safety of the broader community, school workers must be prioritised in the vaccine rollout.“If the many calls by education unions and independent experts over the last 8 months to prioritise vaccines for education workers had been followed, it seems likely that today we would be facing a smaller and more manageable outbreak here in Victoria,” she said.Mr Crockford told St Albans Meadows Primary staff that he did not have much more information.“I can inform you that I am awaiting instruction from DET and the Department of Health as to what our obligations are, and how we proceed going forward. At this stage I am not pre-empting the response required, however, I will communicate appropriately with you when I have accurate and approved information to share,” Mr Crockford told staff.“We must be united in facing this challenge and be measured in our response,” he said in the email.Students and staff at Trinity Grammar are on tenterhooks after two more teachers tested positive, bringing the total number of infected teachers at the Kew boys’ school to three.The status of thousands of children and adults connected to the school may change in coming hours and days, with new primary cases expected to be contacted by health officials tonight and tomorrow.Principal Adrian Farrer wrote to parents telling them the teachers “come from across the school” but had little more information about the implications.“I acknowledge the anxiety that this news brings to our community. It is a difficult time for all and the implications are not yet entirely clear,” he said.“The latest staff members to test positive are currently working with the Department of Health to provide information that will assist contract tracers and the School. I cannot provide you with any more useful detail than that until we receive our instructions from the authority.”Trinity Grammar has 156 teaching staff, 110 non-teaching staff and 1500 boys.The additional infections at Trinity come as another teacher at Bacchus Marsh Grammar was confirmed as a new case after picking up the Delta variant from a fellow teacher during a staff development day.The school’s principal, Andrew Neal, on Friday confirmed that four teachers in total had now tested positive to the virus.All four are based at the Maddingley Senior/Middle School.In a letter to parents on Friday, seen by the Herald Sun, Mr Neal said: “Unfortunately, some of the recently infected staff have been in direct contact with students”.“The earlier advice that all students should stay at home and isolate still applies and we will update you with further advice as we are provided it,” he added.Early on Friday, a family member of a senior student at Ballarat Clarendon College was confirmed as a positive case.– Susie O’Brien and Suzan DelibasicVICTORIAN EXPOSURE SITES CLIMBA popular gym in Richmond, a DFO shoe store and more than ten locations on Phillip Island have been added to Victoria’s rapidly growing exposure sites.F45 in Richmond is now a Tier 1 exposure site on the 14th of July from 6:50am-8:05am and on the 15th of July from 6:35am-8:05am.A Vans shoe shop within DFO Uni Hill in Bundoora has been identified as the latest Tier 1 exposure site on the 9th of July from 4:20pm-4:50pm.Yarra Yarra Rowing Club has also been published as a Tier 1 site on the 14th of July from 6:05am-8:00am and on the 15th of July from 8:02am-10:00am.Anyone who visited at those times is urged to get tested and isolate for 14 days.Phillip Island remains on high alert after a positive case visited several venues in the area, including a busy supermarket and the Grand Prix Circuit.Another venue in Phillip Island – the North Pier Hotel – has been identified as a Tier 1 exposure site on the 12th of July from 7:22pm-10:47pm.The Basketball Stadium at Valkstone Primary School in Bentleigh East is also now a Tier 1 site on the 14th of July from 4:45pm-6:30pm.The racetrack and a Coles supermarket have been listed as Tier 1 exposure sites as Victoria grapples with the latest outbreak.Anyone who visited the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on July 13 from 11:10am-1:17pm or the Coles on the corner of Church St and Thompson Ave on July 12 from 4:30pm-5:30pm must get tested immediately and quarantine for 14 days from exposure.Earlier on Friday, the San Remo Fisherman’s Co-op and Phillip Island Ten Pin Bowling and Entertainment and Grumpys Crazy Golf, both in Cowes, were added to the ballooning list of Tier 1 exposure sites after a positive case visited the venues on July 14.A gym in Essendon has also been listed as a Tier 1 exposure site on Friday evening after a positive case attended the venue.Anyone who went to Re-Creation Health Club on Buckley St between 5.30am and 7pm and 9.20pm and 10.30pm on July 13 must get tested and isolate for 14 days.Victoria’s Covid clusters 16/7MELBOURNE LOSES ANOTHER HOSPITALITY STALWARTAnother beloved hospitality venue has fallen victim to Victoria’s hard lockdowns and severe restrictions. The Victoria Hotel has been an iconic pub in the heart of Yarraville since the 1800s.“With a heavy heart we will permanently close The Victoria Hotel,” Owner Annette Murdaca-Soto said on a Facebook post on Friday.“Today entering our fifth lockdown it feels surreal and we feel numb.“Unfortunately businesses are not like a light switch, turning off and then on again.“With little to no notice from the government it means losses of thousands of dollars on days that would be our highest trading days.“Government support has meant we’ve been able to retain some of our staff members whom have stood by our side, however with no relief on electricity, gas, water, insurances, licensing and rent … we are still so behind.“Now faced with a large rent increase we will never be able to catch up.”Ms Murdaca-Soto said that the owners and staff ultimately “feel let down” by the lack of Government support.“We have come back after each lockdown with the ever hopeful optimism that as Melburnians we stand together and we will get through this, however this time we have nothing left to give, mentally and financially,” she said.The Victoria Hotel will have its final day of trading post lockdown on Sunday August 8.
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