Victoria Records Two New Local COVID Cases, Possible Source of Delta Cluster Found

Acting Prime Minister James Merlino said Victoria remained on track to easing restrictions on Friday, with just two more cases detected in the state’s coronavirus outbreak.

The two new cases are linked to the current epidemic.

One is a child linked to the West Melbourne outbreak and the other is close contact with a case in Arcare Maidstone.

The child diagnosed yesterday is a student at North Melbourne Primary School, but is in a different grade level than two previous cases identified at the school.

A large number of contacts at this school have now moved from level 2 to level 1, which means they must be tested and quarantined for 14 days.

The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Center’s COVID-19 vaccination center was also listed as a Level 3 exhibition site between 3:15 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. on June 7.

Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said a positive case presented to the vaccination center yesterday.

Mr Weimar said the person went for a COVID test and then presented to the vaccination center, but was told to leave and self-isolate.

Mr Weimar said he was convinced there was no greater risk to the public.

The advice for level 3 sites is to watch for symptoms.

Possible source found in Delta outbreak

Mr Merlino said that one of the “missing pieces” of the puzzle was the source of the Delta outbreak and that authorities carried out genomic sequencing to try to identify the source, probably in quarantine in a hotel.

“I can confirm today that we have now found a match between a returning traveler who entered quarantine at a hotel in Melbourne on May 8 and this cluster,” he said.

The returning traveler arrived in Melbourne from Sri Lanka and immediately tested positive for COVID-19.

Acting Emergency Services Minister Danny Pearson proposed this timeline:

• May 8: A traveler arrived from Sri Lanka and tested positive
• May 9: He was transferred from the quarantine hotel Novotel Ibis to the Holiday Inn health hotel
• May 23: Ended the 14-day hotel quarantine and was released

Mr Pearson said 24 people who were on the same flight as the man have tested negative for the coronavirus and no one else in quarantine at the same hotel as the man has tested positive for the Delta strain.

“As we continue to review the CCTV and incident logs again, I can also confirm that so far there have been no reported or obvious violations of infection control protocols or whatever. it is anything else that would indicate that a transmission has occurred inside the hotel, ”Pearson said. .

Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng said health officials were investigating four possible scenarios that could explain how the man was linked to the current outbreak:

• The man was infected by another passenger on his flight from Sri Lanka
• The man transmitted the virus after being released from quarantine
• Transmission occurred to personnel carrying the man
• The man somehow infected another resident of his quarantine hotel

Professor Cheng said the man was properly tested and cleared when he left the hotel’s quarantine.

“However, we are still following up on this gentleman’s contacts after his release to make sure there was no transmission after that,” he said.

The 12 residents who were on the same floor as the quarantined man also returned negative tests before being released, and at least 10 of them had a post-discharge swab that was negative.

Professor Cheng said the discovery of the Delta source in Victoria also clarified the likely sequence of events in the West Melbourne outbreak.

“We had been working on the probable scenario that the family in Jervis Bay was the first case of this outbreak,” he said.

The results reported today were detected among 22,814 tests processed on Monday, as the state issued 21,192 doses of vaccination to state-run sites.

Victoria “on track” to ease restrictions

The Melbourne lockdown is due to end at 11.59pm on Thursday, and Mr Merlino said today authorities were “on track” to announce an easing of restrictions.

“Our contact tracing team did exactly what we needed them to do. They found the cases, they found them and they isolated them,” he said.

“Thanks to their exceptional work, we remain on track to announce later in the week, as we said we had planned to do from the start, further easing of restrictions in the Victoria area and Melbourne’s cautious easing of restrictions. “

Mr Merlino said “nothing about today” had changed those plans.

However, different travel restrictions will remain in place for the regional regions of Victoria and Melbourne during the long weekend.

“There are very good reasons for this. We absolutely want to deepen this and make sure that there is no risk of this spreading in the Victoria area,” said the acting Prime Minister.

The health service registered eleven new cases on Sunday, but many of them were already isolated people, and all were linked to known cases.

Several children are among the cases in the West Melbourne cluster, but University of Melbourne professor of pediatrics Fiona Russell said there was no need to speed up the vaccination of children.

“In the context where we have a global vaccine shortage when most of the front-line people haven’t even vaccinated, you really have to follow due process in terms of what the direct benefits and benefits are to children by. compared to the risk, ”she said. mentionned.

“It may be at some point in the future that we need to vaccinate children, but we are not there yet.”

Several Melbourne boutiques have been added to the list of over 300 exhibition venues, including an IGA supermarket in Southbank and 7-Eleven stores in Yarraville and Maribyrnong.

Encouraging numbers of cases in recent days

Victoria’s Tourism and Major Events Minister Martin Pakula said there were positive signs ahead of a decision later this week on whether Melbourne’s lockdown would be relaxed.

“Today’s numbers are encouraging, yesterday’s numbers were more encouraging than they first thought because they were all related,” he said.

Mr Pakula said he expected crowds to be allowed at AFL games in Melbourne when the current lockdown was relaxed.

“I don’t expect us to go back to 85 percent [capacity] or anything of that nature, but I expect we will have AFL games in Victoria as soon as possible, ”he said.