Delivery driver spread virus
Victoria has recorded five new locally-acquired cases of Covid-19, four of of them close contacts of a food delivery driver who travelled across north and southeast Melbourne while potentially infectious.
But the state’s health minister believes that authorities are ‘‘getting close on the heels’’ of the outbreak as more exposure sites are revealed.
The new cases were diagnosed on Friday – the first of seven days scheduled for Victoria’s fourth lockdown – from more than 56,000 tests. The testing tally broke the state’s daily record, while more than 21,600 vaccine shots were administered – another record.
Most of the infections are linked to Melbourne’s City of Whittlesea cluster, with cases testing positive for the B1617 strain first identified in India.
Health Minister Martin Foley said four of the five local cases on Friday were connected to a delivery driver who had earlier been confirmed as Covid-positive, who worked for numerous days while infectious. ‘‘They either live in the same household or there was a meeting of households, quite appropriately, where transmission occurred.’’
The final case was a person connected to the Port of Melbourne outbreak linked to Stratton Financial. At least 14 Stratton employees are now Covid-positive.
While refusing to speculate on an extended lockdown, Foley said he was confident that authorities were bringing the problem under control.
He said close contacts of cases who visited the Highpoint shopping centre in northwest Melbourne and two AFL games last weekend were returning negative results.
‘‘We do not know what is in store in the next 24 hours, but are making exceptional progress in terms of contact tracing, and we are, I think, getting close on the heels of this outbreak,’’ Foley said.
Masks are mandatory in Victoria, and residents can’t leave home except to shop for essentials, provide or receive care, exercise, work or study, or to get vaccinated.
But scores of Melburnians queuing for the Covid-19 jab are facing long waits after technical problems crippled booking systems. Some walk-ins reported being turned away from vaccine centres, and others said they had been warned of five-hour delays.
The Victoria Department of Health’s Jeroen Weimar said the state was unable to administer more than roughly 20,000 jabs a day, and the booking system problems would be addressed by new software.
More than 15,000 primary and secondary contacts to date have been told to self-isolate after coming into contact with a Covid case. The state government has also asked for 160 defence force personnel to help check on the thousands of people who have been told to isolate. The list of exposure sites has grown to more than 150.