Victorian contract tracers are scrambling to find missing links in a growing cluster of COVID-19 cases in Melbourne’s north as 10 new exposure sites in Brunswick and Reservoir are identified overnight.
The new sites include indoor soccer facility Futsal Brunswick – May 23 between 9am and 10am, BT Conor Reserve in Reservoir – May 21 between 8pm and 11.30pm and Coles Express in Reservoir – May 18 between 3.15pm and 4.15pm.
The state’s health department also added Nando’s Epping – May 19 between 8.30pm and 9.20pm, and store House and Party – May 22 between 5.15pm and 5.50pm.
They new locations join sites identified yesterday that include Highpoint Shopping Centre in Maribyrnong, Urban Diner Food Court in Epping, Jump! Swim Schools in Bundoora and Epping North Shopping Centre.
Victoria Health yesterday confirmed four new COVID-19 cases among family members across three households in the City of Whittlesea – two men, one woman and the preschool-aged child.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton warned Victorians should prepare for more positive cases.
“The CT values were low which means the viral load was high and, as you say, with close contacts becoming positive, he is likely to be quite infectious,” he said.
“We will always be at risk until we have high vaccination coverage.”
Melbourne physician, Dr Todd Cameron told Channel Nine’s Today show that test results will determine whether Melbourne will need to take tougher measures to get control of the new outbreak.
“I think this is probably one of the more challenging outbreaks that we have seen just based on the number of people involved,” Dr Cameron said.
“Provided we don’t see unlinked clusters that are popping up all over the place I think we can be confident that we are getting on top of it.
“Dr Cameron also said the viral load in the city’s four new coronavirus cases is worrying and because one of the new cases is a preschool-aged child, the chances of more positive cases emerging is likely.
“Having a pre-school child, any of us who have had children of that age know that they are kind of all over the place. So there’s a reasonable chance that we are going to see more cases I would expect,” he said.
