Melbourne is on high alert after two popular shops in the city’s CBD were added to Victoria’s long list of Covid-19 exposure sites.
Strandbags and Sketchers, both located in the Spencer Outlet Centre, in Docklands, were added on Monday afternoon after Victoria recorded two new locally acquired cases.
A positive case visited the Strandbags store on May 18 between 12.00pm-12.25pm, while another attended the sketchers shop on the same day from 12.10pm-12.40pm.
The Victorian Health Department has listed the stores as tier 2 exposure sites, with those who visited the store advised to get tested urgently and isolate until receiving a negative result.
A Coles express, on the Melton Highway in Taylor Lakes, was also added to the list as a tier 2 site on Monday after positive case visited the petrol station store on May 21 between 10.30am-11.00am.
Busy Melbourne shopping outlet Spencer Outlet Centre (pictured) has been added to the list of exposure sites
A Coles Express in Melbourne (pictured) has been identified as a Covid exposure site by health authorities
Meanwhile, residents of a townhouse complex in Melbourne’s CBD are being ordered to isolate for up to a fortnight after authorities established a link between two coronavirus cases who live there.
Victoria’s Health Minister Martin Foley confirmed a case reported on Saturday lives in the same Southbank townhouse complex as a worker from Arcare Maidstone, who earlier contracted the virus via the aged care facility.
Authorities believe the aged care worker infected the man, aged in his 30s, in a common area of the low-rise complex, prior to testing positive.
‘The epidemiology, the interviews with the two cases involved and the genomic sequencing seems to support that,’ Mr Foley told reporters on Monday.
There are more than 130 venues currently on Melbourne’s exposure list – down from 400 that were listed last week
‘What we’re trying to do is to run down the particular circumstances of that and make sure that if there are any chains of transmission out there, that we identify them early and cut them off.’
The aged care worker was transferred to hotel quarantine upon testing positive.
Mr Foley said authorities are investigating two possible sites of transmission within the complex.
‘As I understand it, it is not laundries,’ he said.
The complex has not been listed as a public exposure site.
All registered owners of the more than 100 townhouses have been contacted, while a pop-up testing facility is being established on site.
Nurses will go door-to-door to ensure people are tested.
‘Most residents will simply be required to test and isolate until negative … but a smaller number … will most likely have to isolate for 14 days,’ Mr Foley said.
Victoria’s Covid Commander Jeroen Weimer also had a message for his fellow Victorians – get tested as soon as possible (pictured, people on Lygon St on Friday after the lockdown ended on Thursday night
Melbourne’s lockdown has ended – but overnight three new exposure sites were added to the Victorian Health website
It comes as Victoria recorded two new local cases of COVID-19 on Monday, both of whom are children, who are close contacts of previous cases and have not been in the community while infectious.
One is linked to the Reservoir household reported last week, while the other is linked to the man who tested positive at the Southbank townhouse complex. It was previously reported by authorities that the man had a young family.
Authorities are yet to establish a link between the Reservoir family of four, who tested positive on Thursday, to the wider City of Whittlesea outbreak.
Mr Foley said contact tracers were looking at a number of cases that have contracted the virus near a Thomastown industrial precinct, just south of the Metropolitan Ring Road.
‘There are as many as 10 public and private exposure sites within this particular pocket of Thomastown, with some broad overlap between a number of the positive cases,’ he said.
‘We want to use this as an opportunity to remind everyone who was in that industrial precinct, whether you deliver goods there, whether you are part of the service delivery to that particular industrial precinct, just to think about any symptoms that you may have had.’
A confirmed case visited the McDonald’s Freshwater Place on Freshwater Place, at Southbank, between 5pm and 5.30pm on June 11
More than 2000 Victorians are isolating after coming into contact with a positive case, while about 130 exposure sites remain listed as of Monday afternoon.
Some 16,932 Victorians were tested for COVID-19 in the 24 hours to Monday morning, while 13,764 received a vaccine dose at state-run hubs.
Mr Foley said increased testing would help authorities ‘run down those last few chains of transmission’ left in the outbreak.
The outbreak, which began in the local government area of Whittlesea, forced Melbourne into a two-week lockdown, which ended on Friday.
The lockdown was replaced with strict restrictions, including a ban on home gatherings, a 25km travel limit and mandatory masks indoors and out, which will remain until at least June 18.
Regional Victorians are allowed two visitors at home, while density limits are in place at restaurants, pubs and cafes, gyms and other venues.
Mr Foley said the state was ‘on track’ to further ease restrictions later in the week.
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