Summary
- Eighteen new coronavirus cases have been confirmed nationwide today, 16 in Victoria and two in New South Wales
- The Australian Health Protection Principal Authority has urged people to avoid six local government areas in Melbourne where case numbers have increased in the past few days.
- Victorians awoke to tighter coronavirus restrictions today. Household gatherings can include no more than five people (down from 20), while cafes, pubs and restaurants will not be allowed to increase their capacity.
- NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has urged people to avoid travelling to Melbourne due to Victoria's recent increase in case numbers.
- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has almost reached nine million, while more than 467,000 people have died.
Community transmission on the rise in Victoria
By Craig Butt and Melissa Cunningham
Victoria's Health Minister Jenny Mikakos says a total of 222 coronavirus cases in Victoria since the beginning of the outbreak are believed to be due to community transmission, an increase of 12 since yesterday.
That increase of 12 is the largest single-day increase in community transmission for more than two months.
A case is classed as community transmission if the person who tested positive is not a returned traveller from overseas or a close contact of an existing case.
As this graph shows, there has been an uptick in community transmission in recent days.
Keep in mind that it can take contract tracers more than a day to determine whether an infection source was from community transmission, so increases in community transmission do not necessarily line up with an increase in cases.
Of Victoria's 16 new confirmed coronavirus cases since overnight, six were from known clusters and four where in people in hotel quarantine, five were found through routine testing and one is under investigation.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it was concerning that for six of the state's cases overnight the source remained unknown.
He would not rule out Victoria going back into lock-down if cases continued to soar, saying there was "no silver bullet" solution.
"We have had very low levels of community transmission that have been ongoing right throughout from the very beginning as established in February," Professor Sutton said.
"This is a long battle and a complex one and there is no single silver bullet, it is re-emerging because people are not doing things as stringently as they might have done a month, two months ago."
He said the Black Lives Matter protest did not appear to significantly contribute to the spread.
Latest updates
Hard borders to Western Australia remain 'without a date set' as state goes back to normal
By Daile Cross
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan said the recent uptick in cases in Victoria meant a planned date to open the state’s hard border to the east, initially pencilled in for August 8, had been postponed.
As WA was “going back to normal” with the start of phase 4 of the “roadmap to recovery” out of the pandemic to begin by the weekend, Mr McGowan said he would only contemplate reopening the borders if the eastern states had brought the virus’ spread under control.
Phase 4, which will start at midnight on June 26, will see the following changes for WA:
- Public sport, dining out and public transport to resume as normal,
- Existing gathering limits will be removed, with observation of the state-specific 2-square-metre rule still applying for venues catering for more than 400 people,
- Restrictions on licensed premises will be removed, allowing West Australians to have a drink while standing at a bar,
- Events permitted, except large-scale multi-stage music festivals,
- Major venues such as Optus Stadium and RAC Arena allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity,
- Casino gaming floor reopens with every second machine turned off,
- Gyms able to operate unstaffed, but regular cleaning must be maintained.
Too early to tell how the outbreak in Victoria is tracking: Chief Medical Officer
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy says it is still too early to say how the outbreak in coronavirus cases in Victoria is tracking.
"All the attention at the moment is on Victoria," he said.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Brendan Murphy.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
He said 18 new coronavirus cases had been confirmed today, 16 in Victoria and two in New South Wales.
Of the Victorian cases, Professor Murphy said seven were connected with existing outbreaks, five were under investigation and four were overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.
"Given the peak that occurred towards the end of last week, it's still too early to say how the Victorian outbreaks are going," he said.
"But they are throwing every resource at this, their public health response is extensive, there is substantial testing happening in those hotspot areas, they are tracing very large numbers of contacts... and responding in a way that I have every confidence they are doing everything they can to bring these outbreaks under control."
Unpacking the advice for residents of Victoria's hotspots
Victoria's state government has issued travel restriction recommendations for residents in six Melbourne local government areas on the advice of Australia's top medical officials.
Following five days in a row of double-digit growth in new COVID-19 case numbers, officials have warned the state is "absolutely at risk of a second peak" and are "strongly discouraging" travel to and from Hume, Casey, Brimbank, Moreland, Cardinia and Darebin for non-essential reasons.
Breaking news reporter Rachael Dexter has compiled all the latest information on the coronavirus restrictions in Victoria, as well as the current policy on masks, breaches of social distancing, school attendance, work and whether holidays are allowed.
Where to get tested for coronavirus in New South Wales and Victoria
Here are the locations in New South Wales and Victoria where you can get tested for coronavirus.
Nationwide, more than two million tests for coronavirus have been carried out in Australia since the start of the outbreak.
Long queues at COVID-19 testing centres
By Aisha Dow
People are continuing to report frustrating delays and closures at Melbourne’s drive-through COVID-19 testing centres.
Primary school teacher Matthew Cardamone set out to get a test first thing this morning after developing a sore throat and body aches late last night, but has only just returned home.
The 34-year-old told The Age that he drove to a testing centre in Dandenong, in Melbourne's south-east, arriving about 15 minutes after it opened at 9am.
Queues for coronavirus testing at Chadstone in MelbourneCredit:Joe Armao
However he said when he arrived he was told that it was closed, because they had already reached capacity.
The physical education teacher said a traffic controller told him “we need more testing sites, we can’t keep up”.
Mr Cardamone said he then decided to drive to the Southland Shopping Centre in Cheltenham where he came across cars banked up many blocks from the shopping centre, as people waited to get tested.
“I was in that queue for about three and half hours,” he said. “I just sat in the car and listened to the radio.”
AFL bans contact training for large groups
By Jake Niall
The AFL has banned contact training in large groups for the next four weeks in the wake of the positive COVID-19 test to Essendon's Conor McKenna.
The league on Monday decided to bar contact training in sessions where the whole list is involved. However, clubs will be allowed to hold contact training with small groups of up to nine players.
The entire list can still train together with ball movement, but no contact is allowed.
Full contact training among the full list of players has been banned for the next four weeks.Credit:AAP
Club football bosses were told at a meeting with the AFL early on Monday afternoon.
It is an indication of the compromises the AFL has to make during the pandemic in order to keep playing and fulfil its broadcast obligations.
Watch now: Press conference with Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy
National Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy is about to provide an update on coronavirus.
How active coronavirus case numbers have changed in Victoria over time
This graph shows the number of active coronavirus cases in Victoria over time.
There are two distinct 'hills' in the graph so far. That one is when the number of active coronavirus cases peaked at 622 on the last day of March, a short time after borders were closed and tight restrictions were put into place. Throughout April, the number of active cases plummeted as fewer people were infected.
The second, much smaller and flatter hill, comes in mid-May and is largely because of a localised outbreak at a meat processing facility in Melbourne's west and a number of fast-food restaurants in the city's north.
For about the past week, the number of active cases has risen each day, and you can see the line beginning to creep up past the 100 mark.
Long queues for coronavirus testing in Melbourne and Sydney
By Aisha Dow and Craig Butt
We are chasing up reports that many of Melbourne’s coronavirus testing centres located at shopping centres are being overwhelmed and that some stations have closed temporarily.
One caller told 3AW this morning that he had attempted to get his daughter tested at clinics at Fountain Gate Shopping Centre in Narre Warren, in Melbourne's south-east, which was closed.
“We’ve then proceeded to Dandenong and been told that testing has been closed for the day,” he said.
“At 10 o’clock in the morning I would have thought we would be able to get tested today.”
A reader contacted me earlier with a similar story. He said had spent hours queuing for a test for his child at Southland Shopping Centre, where the line of cars had led to traffic jams onto the Nepean Highway.
There have been some long queues for testing in Sydney as well. Earlier today there were lines of 40 cars outside a drive-through testing place in Lilyfield, in Sydney's inner west (see 12.17pm post):
Rethink travel to Melbourne, urges NSW Premier as cases there grow
By Rachel Clun
NSW residents have been urged to reconsider visiting Melbourne amid an outbreak of new mystery community-acquired cases of coronavirus.
While the border between NSW and Victoria will remain open, the NSW community has been asked to avoid a number of hotspots in the city.
In Victoria 16 new cases have been confirmed, including two cases linked to an outbreak from an H&M store at Northland Shopping Centre in Melbourne's north, and two in teachers from Albanvale Primary School. Six of the new cases have no known sources.
"Nobody from NSW should be travelling to those hotspots at this present time, and people should consider whether there should be travelling to Melbourne at this point in time, whilst community transmission is where it is,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said. "You should not be travelling to those hotspots at all.”
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2020-06-22 05:47:00Z
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