Victorians are bracing for additional Covid-19 cases as other states closed their borders and warned residents to avoid traveling to Melbourne.
Victoria’s acting premier, James Merlino, said on Wednesday that the next 24 hours would be critical after the state recorded six new local cases, taking the cluster to 15 in total.
The government has held off on imposing further restrictions, so far, but wouldn’t rule out a tougher stance including a potential lockdown.
The state’s chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, is concerned about the amount of time positive cases have been in the community.
He suggested on Wednesday that any lockdown would be broad rather than confined to Melbourne’s northern suburbs. “We’ve got significant spread of exposure sites at the moment so it’s not something that we would look to at a postcode level,” Sutton said.
South Australia closed its border to travellers from greater Melbourne on Wednesday while the Northern Territory said it would shut its border to those travelling from hotspots from Thursday. NSW urged its residents to postpone non-urgent travel to the city.
Late on Wednesday, NSW Health revealed it was contacting people from a sporting club based in Tooleybuc, in the western Riverina region, who attended an event in Cohuna, Victoria, on Saturday.
“This event was attended by a confirmed case of Covid,” the health department said. “Anyone who attended is requested to immediately self-isolate and await further advice.”
Health authorities in Victoria are concerned by the types of high-risk venues visited by positive cases, including an AFL match at the MCG, another at Marvel Stadium, two venues in regional Victoria and bars in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Prahran.
Despite the increase in cases, Merlino said the Victorian government had decided against immediately introducing further restrictions on top of the measures announced on Tuesday.
“I want to be upfront with everyone this morning; I cannot rule out taking some further action,” Merlino said. “It’s fair to say the next 24 hours are going to be particularly critical in terms of whether we need to make further changes beyond those announced yesterday.”
Sutton said it was reassuring that all of the cases had been linked.
“So we understand the relationships between all of them, we’ve got an explanation for how transmission has occurred,” Sutton said.
But he was concerned by the growing number of exposure sites.
“Certainly the fact that there have been exposures over a number of days that go back in time is a concern,” the chief health officer said.
“It’s pretty clear that we have run down multiple generations of transmission,” Sutton said. “It’s been a lot of chasing to be done effectively because we have had those individuals out in the community for some days. So there are potential exposures that relate to some days ago.”
All 15 cases have the B1617 variant which originated in India late last year.
Genomic sequencing shows the outbreak is linked to the case of a Wollert man, with an official Soth Australian report on Wednesday suggesting he caught the virus via aerosol transmission while in an Adelaide quarantine hotel.
But a definitive link between the Wollert man and the Whittlesea outbreak hasn’t been established.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ballarat Health Services confirmed it was investigating a Covid test result after a returned traveller presented to the local hospital overnight.
Initial investigations suggest it may be a historic case and further testing was underway.
The individual and their close contacts, including staff and patients, were isolating “out of an abundance of caution”, BHS said in a statement.
Victoria’s health minister, Martin Foley, said record numbers of people were turning out for testing and had inquired about the vaccine.
“Yesterday we also saw a record number of calls to our vaccine hotline, and we want to see another record,” he said.
Sutton urged eligible Victorians to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
“In terms of transmission risk, vaccination isn’t at the kind of levels that make a difference now to the speed of new generations of cases,” he said.
“We know many over 50s still have not had the vaccine and many will be booking now. Many turned up yesterday. There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, who can get vaccinated now and should get vaccinated now. The concerns about clots, I understand. This is the same vaccine – the AstraZeneca vaccine – that has been given to the UK, where they have now gone down from over 60,000 cases per day to 2,500 cases per day.
“It is getting over its pandemic through this vaccine. There is always a risk with medications and as far as the clots go with AstraZeneca, that is a small risk. AstraZeneca provides extremely good protection against hospitalisation and serious illness, so it is just worthwhile to get that vaccine.”
Merlino said Victorian authorities were still considering broadening the criteria for vaccination eligibility.
“The one positive out of all of this is the massive increase in the number of people coming out yesterday to get vaccinated,” he said. “Right now, we do not have a problem with the supply. As I have set a number of times at our state sites, we have got the capacity to do two to three times what we have been doing.”
The NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, earlier on Wednesday said two close contacts of Victorian cases had been identified in that state, and both had since tested negative. People arriving in NSW from the greater Melbourne area must complete an online declaration form confirming they have not attended one of the venues of concern.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the situation in Victoria “could happen in any state in Australia,” joining the calls urging eligible Australians to get vaccinated.
“People have not been vaccinated enough. We are still in the very initial stages of getting our population vaccinated.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the South Australian premier, Steven Marshall, said as of 6pm no one from greater Melbourne would be permitted to enter his state.
Meanwhile, WA’s acting chief health officer, Dr Paul Armstrong, said anyone who had visited exposure sites in Victoria at the relevant times should get tested and immediately quarantine for 14 days.
From Thursday, Queensland will only allow its residents who are in Victoria to return from the state, and those who have been in the local government area of Whittlesea since 11 May will have to go into hotel quarantine.
- with Australian Associated Press
