Vic’s worst yet to come
Chief Health Officer: more deaths in coming days
HEALTH officials have warned Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus is set to get worse before it gets better, with the state recording the nation’s biggest ever daily rise in infections.
It comes as a KFC-fuelled birthday party cost revellers more than $26,000 and prompted Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton to slam the actions of those ignoring lockdown rules.
Victoria recorded 288 new cases of coronavirus on Friday, a massive increase unseen in Australia since COVID-19 was first discovered.
There are now 1172 active cases across the state while 47 people are in hospital and 12 are in intensive care.
Just 26 of the new cases can be traced back to existing outbreaks, with the virus found in another 14 health care workers. Total community transmission has more than doubled over the past two weeks, with 509 cases that could not be linked to clusters or overseas quarantine.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the new case figure was a “pretty ugly number” and there was significant concern for the suburbs of Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park and Truganina.
“People in those areas in particular should bear in mind that any symptoms, really, should prompt you to be testing,” he said. “You should not be seeing other people. You should be at home, you should be isolating and getting tested.”
Professor Sutton said the increase would bring more deaths, with the full benefits of the lockdown not expected to appear for one to two weeks.
“We will see an increase in hospitalised and ICU cases and in deaths in the coming days because of the spike that we have seen in recent days,” he said.
“(An increase in deaths) is not because the virus is worse, it is because we’re seeing people who are most vulnerable, the elderly, those with chronic illness, coming down with infection.”
Prof Sutton said Victoria’s intensive care caseload paled in comparison to the US, but still needed to be reduced.
He said officials would review advice for the Geelong area daily, with five active cases currently in the region.
Premier Daniel Andrews said Victoria had run more than 37,000 tests in one day, which was helping track and control the virus.
“That’s the biggest single day of testing that has been done and by some considerable margin,” he said.
“If we all moderate our behaviour, if we stay at home and we follow the rules and get tested when we’re sick, if we don’t go out and about our business as usual if we are sick, then we will pull this up, we will bring a sense of control to this.”