Victoria has recorded 21 deaths and 410 new case of coronavirus overnight. 15 of these deaths have been linked to aged care facilities as coronavirus continues to spread quietly through Sydney with mystery cases and hotspots growing.
Speaking to Sunrise this morning the deputy chief medical officer Professor Michael Kidd said people needed to remain vigilant and maintain social distancing.
“We can have people who have no symptoms or very few symptoms actually carrying the virus. That’s why it is very important that people adhere to the rules, he said.
Kidd said people flouting social distancing rules was “beyond disappointing” saying they are putting lives at risk.
A venue has been slammed with fines for violations after footage emerged of a wild wedding in Sydney’s west. The Lidcombe venue was also forced to evict wedding guests for failing to abide by COVIDsafe rules.
100 days after reporting no new transmissions, the New Zealand city of Auckland has been forced back into lockdown once more following an outbreak of coronavirus cases. Authorities are still scrambling to discover the source of the outbreak which began with a family of four and has since spread to 13 people. there are now 36 active cases of coronavirus in the country.
Meanwhile back in Australia, Victoria’s deputy chief medical officer have reported there are growing concerns around the number of new diagnoses in regional areas with 176 new cases reported in Geelong over the past two weeks.
“A lot of those have been attributed to outbreaks which are coming under control, but there is certainly some outbreaks and some cases where we don’t know where they’ve come from,” he said.
In addition, there have been 23 new cases in Ballarat, and 51 in Bendigo. The surge in regional diagnoses has prompted the premier to push for more testing centres in regional areas. In response there will be new testing sites at Ballarat’s respiratory clinic, Kardinia Health in Geelong and Spring Gully Primary Health near Bendigo from tomorrow.
The premier again urged people to remain vigilant and ensure they are maintaining social distancing and good hand hygiene and wearing masks at all times when outside their homes.
In an effort to ensure people remain complaint with self-isolation requests during the testing process, the premier also announced the government would be upping the level of payment from $300 – $450 for people (with no sick leave) to stay home whilst they await their test results. Andrews said the decision to increase the payment had been made in consultation with the unions and employers in an effort
“We think $450 is a fair payment for people whose employment circumstances and their bank balance might lead them not to get tested at all, or to get tested and then go to work while they were waiting for the results of those tests.
“We can’t have that happen. We’re not making any judgements on those people, we’re trying to deal with the problem.”
The government has made over 17,000 payments of $300 since instigating the original scheme.
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