Victoria records two new surprise cases of Covid-19 linked to a townhouse where an aged care worker tested positive
- Victoria has recorded two shock new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday afternoon
- Health Minister Martin Foley says cases found in two men in different homes
- The complex has recorded six coronavirus cases in the latest outbreak
Victoria has recorded two shock new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday afternoon linked to the 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 will be 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’.
Victoria has recorded two shock new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday afternoon linked to the 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.
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’
Earlier, the Health Department confirmed there were no locally acquired cases of COVID-19 recorded in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning, while there were three cases in hotel quarantine.
Some 15,067 Victorians were tested and 9997 received a vaccine dose at a state-run hub during the same period.
Walk-in vaccinations for the Pfizer vaccine have been halted for the rest of the week in an attempt to preserve supply for already-booked first and second doses.
‘We have the supply to meet all those second doses … but we can’t keep doing the first doses at the rate that we would like to,’ Mr Foley said.
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