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Police have busted an illegal brothel in St Albans, arresting the operator and fining five men and women.
The brothel, run from a home in Alfrieda St in St Albans, was raided about 7.25pm on Thursday.
Two women and three men found inside and were each fined $1652 for breaching Stage 4 lockdown restrictions.
The men were identified as a 32-year-old Thornhill man, a 26-year-old Delahey man and a 50-year-old Keilor Downs man.
The brothel operator, a 44-year-old woman, was arrested following a search at an address on Mintaro Way in Seabrook.
She was interviewed and released pending further enquiries.
Both warrants were executed as part of Operation Kokomo, an ongoing investigation into alleged contraventions of the Sex Work Act at the St Albans premises.
The investigation is ongoing.
STATE RECORDS YOUNGEST VIRUS DEATH
A man in his 20s has died from coronavirus, the Premier has confirmed.
The man is not believed to be linked to a disability support facility, and is the youngest Victorian coronavirus fatality to date.
There have been 372 new cases of coronavirus detected and 14 deaths confirmed in Victoria in the past 24 hours, as fresh information reveals that security guards were key to the virus’ leak out of quarantine hotels.
Twelve of the 14 deaths were linked to aged care facilities, while there are currently 2034 active cases linked to aged care outbreaks.
There are 659 people in hospital with the virus, including 41 people in intensive care and 26 on ventilators.
An extra 51 “mystery cases” have been added to the state’s total for community transmission.
The state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton said these mystery cases were a concern.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in the so-called mystery cases or cases of unknown acquisition,” Prof Sutton said.
He urged Victorians to continue adhering to the restrictions.
“I’m confident we’ve seen the peak but it’s got to come down quickly,” Prof Sutton said.
The 7842 active cases in Victoria include 1188 healthcare workers.
There are currently 496 cases in regional Victoria, down from 512 on Thursday.
The Premier said there were still concerns about cases in regional Victoria.
“We remain concerned about Geelong at about 167, Greater Bendigo at 56, and Ballarat at 25,” Daniel Andrews said.
YOUNG PEOPLE DRIVING COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION
Figures released by state Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton show people aged between 20 and 29 are the biggest driver of community transmission.
This group made up 27 per cent of the mystery cases identified so far, followed by those between 30 and 39.
Mr Andrews said these groups were the most mobile in the community and were most likely to leave the house for essential work and shopping.
“My sense of it is more Victorians, a high percentage of following the rules, and that is so important,” he said.
“I think that I would probably draw your attention to the obvious link between those age groups and not their representation in cases but their proportional overrepresentation, when you consider how many age groups across the general Victorian community, it’s probably a function more of movement.
“They are the people doing the shopping, working a permitted industries going out, those who are out and about for lawful reasons, as much as they are out and about breaking rules so I’m not drawing conclusion in my general sense, a high percentage of Victorians are doing the right thing."
EFFECT OF STAGE FOUR STILL YET TO BE REFLECTED IN FIGURES
Prof Sutton said the full effects of the tightened restrictions would be seen in the coming days.
“These are still the effect of mask wearing and stage three so that is encouraging,” he said. “We’ve turned the corner with those interventions and we should see a further driving down to transmission with stage four restrictions.
Prof Sutton said the number of Victorians taken to hospital could potentially decrease in coming weeks.
“We’ve seen a stabilisation in the number of cases, it’s essentially levelled off,” he said.
“I think we will see a levelling off of hospitalisations for community cases in the next couple of weeks and the same for deaths.
“If we can drive numbers down from here on in, knowing what we know, and people who are at their greatest risk of dying, we should see a stabilisation of deaths in the next couple of weeks.
“We are concerned about the significant number of aged care cases, over 2000.
They are most at risk. Most at risk of dying. We also have to drive those numbers down as well.”
ACTIVE AGED CARE OUTBREAKS WITH HIGHEST CUMULATIVE CASES
• 203 cases have been linked to Epping Gardens Aged Care in Epping
• 187 cases have been linked to St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner
• 154 cases have been linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Ardeer
• 130 cases have been linked to Kirkbrae Presbyterian Homes in Kilsyth
• 123 cases have been linked to BaptCare Wyndham Lodge Community in Werribee
• 108 cases have been linked to Outlook Gardens Aged Care Facility in Dandenong North
• 101 cases have been linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Heidelberg
• 91 cases have been linked to Twin Parks Aged Care in Reservoir
• 90 cases have been linked to Arcare Aged Care Facility in Craigieburn
• 83 cases have been linked to Glendale Aged Care Facility in Werribee
CASES CURRENTLY LINKED TO KEY OUTBREAKS
• 203 cases have been linked to Bertocchi Smallgoods in Thomastown
• 83 cases have been linked to Australian Lamb Company in Colac
• 61 cases have been linked to the Woolworths Distribution Centre in Mulgrave
• 48 cases have been linked to Golden Farms Poultry in Breakwater
• 26 cases have been linked to Hazeldene’s Chicken Farm in Bendigo
PEOPLE STILL GOING TO WORK WHILE SICK
Prof Sutton said some Victorians were still attending work when symptomatic.
“It’s still happening, it’s happening across workplaces,” he said.
“The challenge, and we’ve reinforced it at almost every press conference, you have to isolate with the first symptoms but we know people are challenged by dismissing those symptoms because it’s just a scratchy throat or the beginning of a cough or runny nose.”
NIGHT DUTY MANAGER “PATIENT ZERO” IN HOTEL OUTBREAK
Emails reported by Nine Media have revealed the first person to test positive in the Rydges on Swanston outbreak was the hotel’s night duty manager, who came down with a fever on May 25 and was confirmed to have the virus the following day.
Seven security guards and other hotel staff were sent home immediately to isolate but five guards reportedly tested positive and spread the virus to their families in the northern and western suburbs.
It is unclear whether the guards or their families breached isolation orders or potentially spread the virus before they were aware they had been infected.
The night duty manager has been described as patient zero, presumed to have been infected by a quarantined traveller.
But it is not clear how or by whom the manager was infected, only that he was the first to show symptoms and test positive.
In a statement, Rydges responded: “Rydges on Swanston has been closed to guests since 27 March 2020 and has been operating under the direction of the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as a Quarantine Hotel, at the request of the Victorian Government.
While it has been widely reported in the media today that a staff member tested positive on 25 May 2020, we wish to clarify that colleagues and family contacts of the staff member all tested negative, with the staff member isolating immediately upon getting tested.
Rydges on Swanston is fully supportive of the Judicial Inquiry into the Hotel Quarantine Program and is currently assisting the inquiry with its investigations.
We look forward to clarification around the source of infection as the inquiry findings are presented.”
Health authorities have previously spoken about the difficulty in identifying “patient zero” in large outbreaks, given asymptomatic patients can unknowingly have and spread the virus without feeling unwell.
The state government will also face questions today over the origin of the outbreak at a second quarantine hotel, the Stamford, now linked to more than 40 cases.
Uncontrolled spread of the virus in Melbourne’s north and west created the second wave of infections which led to a stage four lockdown.
TEENAGERS ARRESTED AT CHECKPOINT
Three youths were allegedly sprung fleeing from a stolen car at a police checkpoint in Little River.
The stolen car was detected by Operation Sentinel officers after stopping just before the checkpoint at 10:30am on Thursday.
The youths ran from the car but were quickly arrested.
A 16-year-old boy was charged with theft of motor vehicle and commit indictable offence while on bail.
Another 16-year-old boy was charged with theft of motor vehicle.
A 20-year-old Berwick man was charged with theft of motor vehicle and state false name to police.
He was bailed to appear before Werribee Magistrates Court on April 19.
The teens will face a children’s court at a later date.
Each of the youths were slapped with $1652 fines for breaching lockdown restrictions.
– Aneeka Simonis
253 VICTORIANS FINED IN PAST 24-HOURS
A Whittlesea man has been fined an extraordinary ten times for disobeying lockdown rules, police have revealed.
Officers detected the man in Richmond – 47km from his home – who gave the excuse he was “visiting work colleagues” despite being unable to provide the appropriate permit.
The man will be forced to cough up $16,520 in fines for his disobedience.
He was one of 253 people who were issued fines in the past 24 hours.
Of those, 75 were fined for breaching curfew, 41 were fined for not wearing a mask and 20 fined at vehicle checkpoints.
Other covidiots included:
TWO mask-dodgers caught buying cigarettes in South Melbourne after curfew. One of the men claimed he did not need to wear a mask as he has a birth condition that made him “resistant to coronavirus” and
A MAN in Brimbank who was breaching curfew who told police he was “researching where to buy cheap groceries” in the area.
PM: “SOME DAYS WE FALL SHORT”
Scott Morrison says “absolutely unacceptable” problems may still occur in aged care but that there are “no absolute guarantees in a pandemic”.
After a week of criticism at the aged care royal commission, the Prime Minister apologised for the times where the government had fallen short.
“The sad truth is, some days we fall short,” Mr Morrison said.
“On some days, the pandemic gets the better of us, and on other days it doesn’t.”
“Some days, we wish better than has occurred.”
Mr Morrison hit back at criticism from counsel assisting the commission Peter Rozen QC, maintaining the government did have a plan for aged care and was “moving heaven and earth” to keep updating and improving it.
But he said a “reality check” was needed for anyone trying to give guarantees during the pandemic.
“I fear that we will still see things that will occur that we find absolutely unacceptable, and they are unacceptable, they don’t meet those standards,” Mr Morrison said.
“The struggles we face and the complexity that is there means those things have occurred, and we are doing everything we can to prevent them occurring wherever we can.”
Mr Morrison said the scenes at Melbourne aged care homes such as St Basil’s were “not good enough”.
He said: “Of course we’re devastated, of course we’re sorry.”
– Tom Minear
FREE PARKING REINTRODUCED IN CBD
Free parking has been reintroduced in the inner city in certain areas as commercial carparks remain closed.
Motorists can park free in green sign parking bays across the City of Melbourne during stage four restrictions.
City council chief executive Justin Hanney said the move was in line with state government advice received on Thursday night,
“Officers will continue to enforce restrictions for red sign parking bays including disability parking spaces (for vehicles without a permit); no stopping areas o tow-away clearways; loading zones; any other case where a vehicle creates a risk to public safety or access (whether in a green sign or red sign parking bay),” he said.
“We are working with the state government to have commercial car parks reopened to take pressure off on-street carparking.”
Mr Hanney said the council knew that these restrictions would affect residents using residential permit zones “and we will continue to advocate on their behalf”.
“ Parking officers are considered essential workers under state government definitions, and will continue to be visible on our streets,” he said.
“They play an important role in managing public safety and road access for residents, essential workers and emergency service vehicles.”
The council has issued a further 5000 temporary parking permits to frontline emergency workers involved in the pandemic response.
– John Masaunaskas
HOW BORDER CLOSURES COULD CRIPPLE VICTORIAN BUSINESSES
State premiers are being urged to sort out “serious border issues” amid fears of soaring grocery prices and unworkable conditions for Victorian businesses.
The directive from federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud comes after the Herald Sun revealed an industry-led push for “farmer permits” to allow some workers to cross from Victoria into neighbouring states.
Beefed-up border restrictions by the NSW, SA and Queensland state governments over the past fortnight have left Victorian businesses in limbo and fearing for their future.
Mr Littleproud said state health officials and premiers needed to engage with each other to save regional communities and struggling industries.
“The arbitrary closure of state borders have had serious unintended consequences not only on agricultural supply chains but also regional Australians’ wellbeing,” Mr Littleproud said. “Our farmers must be able to continue their important work and regional economies that pose little to no COVID-19 risk must be allowed to continue operating.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will raise the issue with premiers this week.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he understood movement restriction was a “really significant challenge” for farmers but ruled out implementing a permit system.
“I’m not sure that a permit will be possible,” he said, adding he would speak to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk about it this week. Victoria’s Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes met with her interstate representatives on Thursday in a bid to hammer out a solution.
The border clampdown has seen Victorian farrier Mitch Fox stripped of a permit allowing him to travel into parts of NSW on Friday.
It was later reinstated with bizarre new conditions, including he travel to Melbourne to fly to Sydney, rather than simply cross the border.
Mr Fox said carrying heavy items such as anvils and horseshoes was integral to his business, and travelling via planes would impede on his ability to carry all of his necessary equipment.
“It’s just not logistically possible,” Mr Fox said.
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2020-08-14 07:06:00Z
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