Victoria recap A man in his 80s became the 20th person to die in Victoria after being diagnosed with Covid-19. His death brings the number of people who have died in Australia to 103. Victoria recorded 20 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. Eight of those are considered to be from community transmission. That is down from 10 infections from community transmission Victoria had been seeing. There are 141 active cases of Covid-19 in Victoria. More than 1,000 people are considered close contacts of those people who have been infected. Authorities have opened a testing site for Keilor Downs Secondary College students, their parents and teachers at the Melbourne showgrounds. From Thursday, that testing site will be open to the public. A drive through test site has been set up in Craigieburn. The wait can be up to four hours. Victoria has the capacity to test 20,000 people a day, although the turnaround may take a day or more. Police have been called in to manage traffic at the Chadstone shopping centre testing site. The one bit of happy news for Brett Sutton today is the number of community transmission has gone from 10 to 8. He says authorities see that as a stabalisation of the transmissions. Has Victoria been using the Covidsafe app in its contact tracing? Brett Sutton: As I said previously, it’s an important thing for people to download, it will help us in those circumstances where someone has been a close contact but they don’t know who they have been next to for 15 minutes or more or in a room for two hours. We haven’t had cases that have already been identified through our routine picking up the phone contact tracing. But as we go to a more movement of people and, you know, an opening up and less of restrictions, the app will be more and more important as we go by. There is an ‘army’ of public health officials doorknocking Victorian homes from today, to alert people to the dangers of coronavirus, with a focus on those who may not speak English or have English as a second language, to ensure information is spread far and wide. Asked if Victoria could have done better on that front, Brett Sutton says: We were down to one, two, sometimes zero cases of community transmission. When we have seen who’s been identified as cases in recent days, and where those chains of transmission have occurred, we have clearly reached into those communities. It’s a complex process. We have always had information in multiple languages. I have been very actively engaged in multicultural engagement. Obviously with the Chinese community way back in February, March, but ongoing I have met with the Islamic Council of Victoria. We’re meeting with a whole number of ethnic community representatives and we have always advocated to engage with our intelligence team around where are our cases, what communities do they represent and to use all mechanisms to reach into them. It is not a simple case of pamphlets and campaign materials and banner to reach into communities. You do need that community leadership, community champions and all of the modes and methods available to you to try and get messages out. It’s not an easy task. There are people who use social media from their country of origin or amongst their work of friends as their primary source of information. A lot of that is information. A lot of it tells them that it’s all rubbish messaging from government. So we have to meet people where they are and we have to get those messages penetrated a much as possible. What is the next step for Victorian authorities? The primary lever that we now have is a test and trace mechanism. So really broadening the testing availability and the messaging and reach everyone about the need to test if they’re symptomatic is our key driver to get numbers down. Obviously, all of the messages about keeping your distance, about hand hygiene, about cough etiquette, about not visiting others when you’re unwell, they’re all things that make a huge difference. People may not understand how much of a difference it makes, but I think the significant uptick in the last couple of weeks is because those very things haven’t been followed. Those are the things that will maintain low transmission in Victoria. On the reproduction number for the virus, Brett Sutton says it is above two. As he explains: I mean, the reproduction number or the effective reproduction, the ref, is something we want to keep below one. When it’s below one, one case on average transmits to fewer than one case and numbers continue to drop over time and we can get to zero. When it’s at two, it means that the active cases that we have are doubling with each generation. We have seen the community transmission numbers go from single figures to above 10. So it’s no surprise that the – that the ref is at two or above. But with the stabilisation in numbers in the last few days, I expect that that will go back down and I absolutely hope that we can get it below one and drive those numbers back down to zero. On the gentleman who had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and died in Victoria overnight, Brett Sutton says: It’s a gentleman in his 80s. You know, very, very sad account that someone has died, but the family have requested that no further information is given. I’d like to respect that. You know, it does point to the fact that when we get additional cases, there will be a risk of people dying or be at risk of further cases being hospitalised and going to intensive care. That’s why we need to get on top of numbers in general. There are some more questions on that: Q: Have some of the security staff in question been ‘too friendly’ with guests? Sutton: They know the protocols in regards to how to manage accompanying guests for fresh air. So the same messages in terms of the distance they need to keep and the hygiene procedures that they will need to go through routinely. Q: Have there been any instances of security guards breaching those guidelines with guests in terms of the distance between them? Sutton: Not that I’m aware of. Not that I’m aware of. But clearly there’s been transmission to those contracted staff and so whether that’s been from a surface or whether it’s been from a guest to a contracted staff member through respiratory droplets, it will be impossible to find out. But we’re reviewing all of those processes as I said before to make sure that those staff respect them and are not put at risk unnecessarily. On what has happened with the security staff at the Stamford Plaza and Rydges quarantine hotels, Brett Sutton says: There was some concern about the distancing between those contracted security guard staff. I think, you know, it’s always a risk when people are more than – less than 1.5 metres apart. There are a number of staff, some of those spaces where they gathered, meant they were too close together. So that’s been observed. Obviously it’s been re-enforced that distancing needs to be maintained at all times for everyone. In terms of test result turnaround, the CMO says: Even now still with the thousands of tests done over the last couple of days, some of those results might take longer. But again the message hasn’t changed for in my opinion. It’s just unfortunate that people are only really prompted to testing by an increase in cases. We want people to test all of the time, not just when there’s some anxiety about, you know, where case numbers are going. We have an opportunity to control numbers across metro Melbourne. If everyone, all of the time, considers that if they’re symptomatic, they isolate at home, they don’t see others, they present for testing, they get a negative result and they can go about their normal life. Or they get confirmed as a case and we can follow-up and control transmission. On the delays at some testing sites in Victoria, Brett Sutton says: Those 20,000 tests are about the laboratory capacity to process them on a daily basis. All the materials, all the reagents, all the test kits are available up to those numbers. But the focus on where people go for testing has obviously gone to some really focused areas for convenience. All I’m saying is you need to shop around for your testing because there’ll be some sites that are under significant pressure because of that convenience. But there’ll be some other sites and GP practises and other pop-up clinics that people need to look out for so they’re not spilling out on to the road that requires the traffic management that has affected Chadstone today. Of the new cases: Seven are linked to known outbreaks. One is in hotel quarantine. Nine through ‘routine testing’ (where people go into a clinic to be tested – but not yet had their infection immediately traced back to a particular source as yet. Three others are under investigation – meaning they don’t know where they could have picked it up (most likely community transmission). There are three staff members who tested positive at the Hampstead dental clinic. All staff members of the clinic will be tested but there are no patients who have been identified as close contacts.