Testing blitz to halt tower block spread

COVID-19 testing is ramping up at apartment towers and in high-risk communities in Melbourne after an outbreak infected dozens of Carlton public housing residents.

Victorian health authorities revealed 28 residents in several Carlton towers had tested positive, as the number of cases linked to North Melbourne and Flemington public housing ballooned to 237.

A man in his 70s died of the virus on Sunday, taking Victoria’s toll to 24 and the nation’s to 108.

The state’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, said Victoria was facing “the public health challenge of our lifetime” as 273 new cases were recorded on Sunday.

“We haven’t even gotten to a peak with this epidemic and we have to throw absolutely everything at it,” he said.

Professor Sutton said the Andrews government was closely monitoring outbreaks and high-risk areas, including public housing and apartment blocks in Carlton, Fitzroy and Dandenong.

“They will reflect the communities in which they sit,” he said. “We should not be surprised by the presence of coronavirus in any tower. What we need to do is support the communities in those towers to manage the risk.”

Professor Sutton said authorities were “stepping up testing” in settings such as the apartment towers in Carlton, where the virus was likely to spread quickly.

“They are in towers, they are not as high-risk as the towers in North Melbourne and Flemington — but all towers really, where there is a concentration of people, are adverse settings,” he said.

“But we have identified those cases earlier and gone in with the same kind of public health response and I think that will be sufficient.”

Tensions rose at the North Melbourne tower still in hard lockdown after a fence was erected to contain residents wanting to exercise. It was torn down following complaints from residents and community groups. Professor Sutton said on Sunday he was not involved in erecting the fence, and did not know why it was.

Asked about residents “horrified” by the barrier, Premier Daniel Andrews said allowing the virus to spread throughout public housing would be “truly horrifying”.

“I understand some of the these scenes are challenging, but it is a challenging circumstance, it is a unique environment, and the only thing driving people is not so much how things look, but how we get the job done,” he said.

National Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth foreshadowed more deaths as the pandemic’s second wave swelled in Victoria.