A high school in Melbourne's north-west has been closed for cleaning after a student tested positive for coronavirus.
Key points:
- Authorities have ruled out the student's infection being linked to a teacher's earlier positive result
- Victoria recorded seven new confirmed cases of the virus overnight
- The state has toughened its directives so those who are currently working from home must continue to do so
The student at Keilor Downs College acquired the infection through a known source, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said.
On Tuesday, a teacher at the school was confirmed to have contracted the virus, but he had been working from home.
Professor Sutton said the student was infectious and had "very mild" symptoms when he attended school on Tuesday May 26 — the day many students returned to face-to-face learning across the state.
Contact tracing is being conducted at the school and any close contacts of the student will be asked to self-isolate.
"It will probably apply to all of the classes that student was in," Professor Sutton said.
The school is set to open on Monday as normal after deep cleaning today.
Students from Taylors Lakes and St Albans secondary schools who attended a VET class with the Keilor Downs student on Tuesday have also been asked to self-isolate. Those schools have not closed.
Professor Sutton said while the teacher and student cases were not thought to be linked, "it might point to low levels of community cases" in Keilor Downs.
"That's why the message that anyone with mild symptoms getting tested is really important and for people in Keilor Downs in particular," he said.
Professor Sutton said the risk of transmission at schools remained low and Victoria had not seen any cases of teachers contracting the virus from students.
"If we've seen some cases [at schools] it's usually been introduced by adults … so the risk of transmission from a student to others is there but I wouldn't expect significant numbers. We certainly haven't seen that in the past," he said.
Victoria recorded seven new cases of COVID-19 since Thursday, bringing the state total to 1,634 after an earlier case was reclassified.
Three were detected through routine testing, two new infections were returned travellers in hotel quarantine and two were currently under investigation.
The high school student is associated with a previously reported family cluster linked to six infections.
Professor Sutton said how the student's family acquired the virus was under investigation.
Work from home directive toughened
Meanwhile, Victoria has hardened its stance on people returning to workplaces, with people being told if they had been working from home, they must continue to do so for all of June.
Restrictions are set to relax on Monday June 1, allowing businesses including cafes and restaurants to again have dine-in guests and permitting people to gather in larger groups.
But the Government has asked people who can work from home to put off returning to the office until at least July — in contrast to many other states, which are allowing people to return to workplaces sooner.
Premier Daniel Andrews today announced the stay at home directions would be amended from Monday to say if people had been working from home throughout the shutdown period, that had to continue doing so.
The Premier made it clear the state was moving from an advisory to an order by the Chief Health Officer under the Health and Wellbeing Act, which carried penalties for breaches.
"If an office that had currently 80 per cent of staff working from home and ignored the Chief Health Officer and had everyone come back Monday, then they would be in breach of the public health orders and there are significant penalties," Mr Andrews said.
He said the focus on enforcement would be "much more about those who are in charge of the workplace" than workers, but he did not think it would come to fining companies, because the Government had consulted with industry.
Data released by the Government shows the number of trips on public transport has increased by 23 per cent since last week.
Approximately 389,000 trips were taken on the network on Wednesday — 18 per cent of the 2 million trips taken in normal time, but about 73,000 trips more than the week before.
The rise is being partially attributed to students returning to classrooms.
Government modelling shows it is difficult for each person to have the required four square metres of space when patronage is above 15 per cent of capacity.
Road usage is also on the rise, with traffic about 77 per cent of normal levels on Wednesday, up from 71 per cent a week earlier.
Professor Sutton said the important thing about the work from home directive was that it applied to hundreds of thousands of people who would then be avoiding congested spaces in workplaces, lowering foot traffic and decreasing the number of people on public transport.
"When you can do something that supports hundreds of thousands of people to maintain another level of physical distancing, that's a really powerful additional measure that can drive down transmission of this virus," he said.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA1LTI5L2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWNhc2VzLWluLXZpY3RvcmlhLXJpc2UtaGlnaC1zY2hvb2wtY2xvc2VkLzEyMjk4MzM00gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyMjk4MzM0?oc=5
2020-05-29 01:15:44Z
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