Premier Daniel Andrews will provide a coronavirus update at 11am after Victoria recorded 15 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, including several mystery infections. Of the new cases, 11 are linked to known outbreaks, and eight were in isolation throughout their infectious period. But a further four new cases have been added to the growing list of mystery infections, with the source of acquisition still under investigation. In total, 40,737 people were swabbed for the virus on Thursday, while 27,427 vaccine doses were administered. It comes as the state government has set a bold new target – to carry out one million vaccinations in state run centres over the next five weeks.Premier Daniel Andrews took to social media on Friday morning to announce the new task, stating there were a “million reasons to get vaccinated”.“I know that number might sound big, but it’s achievable – it’s about 5,000 more Victorians rolling up their sleeves, each day,” the Premier wrote.“Hundreds of thousands of Victorians have already rolled up a sleeve. We get stronger every single day.“And young Victorians have done a big part of the lifting, in a short time too. But we need to speed up even more.”Mr Andrews urged Victorians to come together and get the first available vaccine. “As the Chief Health Officer has said – the best vaccine you can get is the one you can get today,” he added.“So if you’ve been putting it off, now’s the time to stop. The price we pay for delays is more lockdowns, more time at home, and more sick people.“Whatever your reason – whether it’s for yourself, those you love, or for the pub down the road. Just book it in.“Get dad off the couch and book all your housemates in too. We have a goal that we can collectively achieve. And all we need is you, and everyone you know, to make it happen.“And when you get the vaccine — talk about it. Take that selfie, make the 5G joke, share it online and tell all your friends.”FRESH COVID SCARE AT SOUTH MELBOURNE MARKETSouth Melbourne Market was hit with a fresh Covid scare, with the landmark listed a Tier 1 exposure site on Thursday night. A number of vendors were pinpointed, including Rita’s Coffee and Nuts, The Fish Shoppe, Small Town Pie Co, Emerald Hill Nursery, Vangelis Deli, Fruits on Coventry and Haqen’s Organics. Anyone who visited these stores on August 7 between 1.30pm and 2.20pm must get tested and isolate for 14 days. The Victorian health department listed the rest of the market as a Tier 2 exposure site last Saturday between 1.30pm and 2.20pm.Management said the market was closed on Friday morning while the site undergoes a “thorough clean”.“The market is working with the DHHS to ensure we will be able to open as soon as possible,” they said.Moonfish Albert Park on August 9 between 11.50am and 12.15pm and Gum Tree Good Food at Middle Park between 12.05pm and 12.42pm are also Tier 1 sites. Western Autistic School in Laverton has closed today after a confirmed case of Covid-19 was linked to the bus service used by the school. The school’s statement said all close contacts who travelled in the specific bus with the case, while the person was “unknowingly infectious” had been identified and advised by the Department of Health to test and quarantine for 14 days. In a statement to parents and carers sent on Thursday night, the school advised it would remain closed until all those tested and returned a negative result. It comes as Queensland has eight new cases of Covid-19, seven of them linked to the Indooroopilly State High School Delta outbreak.Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the case numbers were good news, and said containment of the NSW Covid situation would be the focus of National Cabinet, over fears it was encroaching on the Queensland border.All of Friday’s local cases were picked up in home quarantine – one on day 12 of isolation.RISK OF INTERSTATE TRAVEL HIGHLIGHTEDAirlines flying into Melbourne from interstate red zones are refusing to check travel permits before passengers board.It comes after revelations two infected women from Sydney were allowed to fly to Melbourne despite having “completely invalid and inappropriate” green zone permits.The pair was ordered into hotel quarantine and later tested positive to Covid-19. Each will now be fined more than $5000.Their actions have forced 46 travellers into a two-week quarantine and also prompted the state government to increase testing efforts for all Melbourne Airport arrivals.It comes as contact tracers chase down four new mystery cases, from 21 new infections, and a worsening western suburbs outbreak.Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar said the two cases from NSW highlighted the current risk of interstate travel.“What on earth they thought they were doing, I can only speculate,” he said.“There’s no point getting angry, there’s no point getting frustrated … (but) this is why we’re putting such significant barriers in place to limit all unnecessary travel between our states at this most critical point of time.”Mr Weimar said authorities continued to “implore” airlines to undertake “as much checking as they can before people get on flights”.“Our best endeavours so far have not resulted in the airlines undertaking significant checking of people’s entitlement to travel before they board. That has always been a source of some frustration to us,” he said.“We’ve tried, we’ve asked, but it hasn’t happened.”Qantas said airline workers weren’t authorised to assess eligibility to travel, which they said were complex and changing regularly.Of the 6000 red-zone arrivals to Melbourne Airport in the past month, 190 people have been thrown into hotel quarantine, while 65 were returned to NSW.Mr Weimar defended the decision to keep the women in Victoria. “Hotel quarantine was the best place for them. We’d have done nobody a service by putting them back on yet another plane, and into the Sydney community,” he said.Of the four new mystery cases announced on Thursday, three are linked to two unconnected households in Glenroy, including a pupil of Glenroy West primary school who may have been infectious for one day at school.Deoples COVID-19 Victorian Exposure Sites TableThe other mystery case is a man from Brunswick West with social connections to exposure sites. It’s likely the case will be linked within days.Mr Weimar said tracking down the Glenroy cases was a top priority and said he wanted to see more testing around Caroline Springs to be confident there were no further undiscovered cases.Victoria recorded 17 other cases on Thursday, all associated with current outbreaks, and just two of these were out in the community while infectious.Authorities revealed on Thursday a Moonee Ponds testing site traffic controller caught the virus last month after a “breach” of infection control rules.He used the same bathrooms as infected people waiting to get swabbed.“There was an overlap that should not have occurred,” Mr Weimar said.Despite the breach, no fines or penalties will be issued.“There’s no punitive regimen,” Mr Weimar added. “We have got literally thousands of people across our testing centres, our vaccination centres, in our health services busting a gut to make this all work, so going in and penalising people … is not what we do,” he said.Cluster MapContact tracers have been able to definitively rule out any link with the traffic controller to the Hobsons Bay cluster, which has ballooned to 109 cases.It’s still unclear where the index case for that outbreak – an Al-Taqwa College teacher – caught the virus.NSW recorded two more deaths and 345 new cases on Thursday, with almost 152,000 people tested for the virus across greater Sydney and in other hot spots.Vic Locally-acquired Covid-19MORE JOIN VACCINE QUEUESVaccine hesitancy is now at the lowest level since summer, as Covid-19 outbreaks across the country spur Australians into action to get the jab.Government research shows 79 per cent of the population is either vaccinated or intends to be, up from 70 per cent a month ago, as the proportion of people concerned about the state of the pandemic has reached 45 per cent – the highest level in a year.The data matches with the Melbourne Institute’s vaccine hesitancy tracker, which estimates 21.8 per cent of Australians remain hesitant. The rate is slightly higher in Victoria and lower in NSW, which is in the grip of a worsening outbreak.Victoria Vaccine LocatorVictoria’s Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar has flagged a further expansion of the state’s vaccine program in coming days. “I’ve got 240,000 appointments left to hand out over the next few weeks,” Mr Weimar said. “I’d love to see those being taken up but we will have more to say about that.”On Wednesday, 6351 Victorians aged under 40 were vaccinated with AstraZeneca, the most in a day so far. The Herald Sun can also reveal aged care workers are finally being rushed to the front of the queue for the jab, as the deadline draws closer for them to be vaccinated if they want to keep their jobs. They are being given a form that guarantees them access to a Covid-19 shot within a week at GP and commonwealth vaccination clinics.National cabinet has agreed to mandate the jab for all aged care workers by September 17, with Victoria’s health department examining the most appropriate way to legally enforce that decision.NSW CASES MAY DELAY ‘REOPENING’Concern is mounting within the federal government that the country will not be able to reopen properly when Australia’s vaccination targets are reached if New South Wales is unable to suppress its worsening outbreak.Under the national cabinet’s plan, the reliance on lockdowns will ease and vaccinated people will be exempt from rules once 70 per cent of eligible adults have received both jabs.But the target is based on Doherty Institute modelling which assumes there is only low-level virus transmission when that target is reached.With New South Wales now averaging 300 cases a day over the last week, and Premier Gladys Berejiklian suggesting driving case numbers to zero is an “aspiration”, senior federal figures fear other states including Victoria will be unwilling to reopen as expected.Scott Morrison reiterated this week NSW could not “give up” on the lockdown and needed to “make sure it works”. “The lockdown is important to suppress the virus. So when we get to the next phase, we go in stronger, not weaker,” the Prime Minister said.“Too many Australians have done too much to put us in a strong position.“We have to get those case numbers down, because when we get to that next phase and we’re at 70 per cent, I want us to go into that phase as strong as we can.”
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