Victoria announces five new coronavirus cases as Melbourne prepares to learn if travel restrictions will stay in place
- Victoria has reported another five new local Covid-19 cases on Wednesday
- State health officials said three also acquired overseas from 17,538 tests
- Three cases linked to known outbreaks, state’s Department of Health said
- Melbournians are waiting to find out if restrictions in the city will be eased
Victoria has reported another five new local coronavirus cases, including two that were announced late on Tuesday.
The state’s health officials said three cases were also acquired overseas from 17,538 tests in the past 24 hours.
Three of the cases are linked to known outbreaks, Victoria’s Department of Health said.
The latest figures come as Melbournians wait anxiously to find out whether the lingering social distancing restrictions following the city’s latest outbreak will be relaxed from Friday.
A couple wait for a tram on Bourke Street in Melbourne on June 10. Victoria has reported another five new local coronavirus cases, including two that were announced late on Tuesday
Health officials and government ministers are expected to discuss which rules can be eased in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning, The Herald Sun reported.
The city’s five million residents are still banned from hosting home gatherings and must wear masks outdoors as well as follow a strict 25km travel limit.
The state on Tuesday afternoon recorded two shock new cases of coronavirus linked to a townhouse where an aged care worker tested positive.
Health Minister Martin Foley confirmed the new cases were linked to the Kings Park Apartment Complex on Dodds and Wells Streets in Southbank.
The cases, both men, will be included in Wednesday’s tally – as a mass testing initiative of the building is now underway.
More than 200 people have been tested so far and the building is locked down until they confirm it hasn’t spread further.
Covid-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar said the two new cases live in separate apartments ‘adjacent to the four other positive cases that we’ve already seen in that wider complex’.
Health Minister Martin Foley confirmed the two new coronavirus cases recorded on Tuesday were linked to the Kings Park Apartment Complex on Dodds and Wells Streets in Southbank
Victoria has recorded two shock new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday afternoon linked to the Southbank townhouse where an aged care worker tested positive
He said the chance of spreading between apartments was low and supported the idea of people remaining in their flats despite problems with cross-infection in hotels.
‘We don’t have any evidence of apartment-to-apartment transition like in hotel quarantine,’ Weimar said.
‘I don’t think we see the direct parallels.’
Hundreds of people who live in the low-rise complex were forced into self-isolation on Sunday, after authorities established a link between two previous coronavirus cases who live there.
A total of six people who live in the apartment have tested positive for Covid-19.
‘Those two positive cases are connected to some communal areas that we are concerned about, thoroughfares within that particular complex,’ Weimar told reporters.
The first three cases were transferred to hotel quarantine upon testing positive.
One positive case, a baby, is still in the complex with its mother.
Mr Foley said more than 200 residents were tested on Sunday.
More to come.