A man in his 80s has died from coronavirus in Victoria, as the state enters its eighth consecutive day of double-digit case increases.
Key points:
- Victoria has recorded 20 new coronavirus cases overnight, seven of which are linked to known outbreaks
- Eight are likely due to community transmission, a slight decrease on previous days
- Authorities are moving to set up more pop-up testing in Melbourne hotspots, where demand has surged
The state's Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, said the man's death overnight took the state's coronavirus death toll to 20.
The man's death is Australia's first coronavirus death in more than a month and takes the national death toll to 103.
"It does point to the fact that when we get additional cases there will be a risk of people dying," Professor Sutton said.
"There will be a risk of further cases being hospitalised and going to intensive care.
"That's why we need to get on top of the numbers in general."
Victoria has recorded 20 new coronavirus cases overnight, seven of which are linked to known outbreaks.
Professor Sutton said the latest cases included:
- Three staff members at the Hampstead Dental clinic in Maidstone
- Another case linked to the H&M store in Northland Shopping Centre, taking that outbreak to five cases
- A case linked to St Monica's College in Epping, taking a cluster there to two cases
- Three cases linked to the Keilor Downs family outbreak, which has now reached 15 cases
The state has recorded eight new cases which are likely due to community transmission, a decrease on daily increases of 10 or more in the past four days.
Professor Sutton said while there were still 141 active cases with more than 1,000 close contacts who needed to be traced, an apparent easing in community transmission was an "encouraging" sign.
"It certainly means we're not getting an increase or an exponential increase in community transmission cases day by day," Professor Sutton said.
More testing sites planned for Melbourne hotspot suburbs
A rise in community transmission of the virus prompted the State Government to declare six local government areas coronavirus hotspots earlier this week.
Professor Sutton said health authorities were rolling out more testing sites in those areas as demand for drive-through testing had surged, leading to hours-long waiting times.
He said testing at Chadstone Shopping Centre had come to a temporary halt while police were brought in to manage the traffic issues caused by queues of cars.
"Human behaviour is a strange thing," he said.
"We've always said get tested with mild symptoms but obviously there's a lot of concern around the increasing cases in recent days."
He said the advice remained for anyone with even the mildest symptoms to get tested, but he encouraged people to go to their GP first to see if they could be tested there.
Authorities hope eased community transmission will drive virus spread back down
Earlier, Health Minister Jenny Mikakos indicated the reproduction rate, a number which attempts to calculate the rate of virus transmission based on modelling, had risen from below 1 to 2.5 in the past week.
Professor Sutton said authorities wanted to keep the effective reproduction number (Reff) below one.
"When it's at two it means the active cases we have are doubling with each generation," he said.
"We have seen the community transmission figures go from single figures [of cases] to above ten. So it's no surprise the Reff is at two or above.
"But with the stabilisation in numbers in the last two days I expect that that will go back down and I absolutely hope that we can get it below one and drive those numbers back down to zero."
An alternative measure of the virus's transmission, the growth factor, is a simpler calculation based on the growth in reported cases and is being used by the ABC to illustrate national trends in coronavirus transmission.
More to come.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA2LTI0L3ZpY3RvcmlhLWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWRlYXRoLWNhc2VzLXJpc2UtYXMtcjAtbnVtYmVyLWNsaW1icy8xMjM4NjU0NtIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjM4NjU0Ng?oc=5
2020-06-24 01:39:37Z
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