Victoria records biggest daily increase in cases with aged care prominent at possibly 200+

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed there were 371 new active cases in Victoria on Thursday, the biggest daily increase since the start of the pandemic.

Of the new cases, 28 were linked to known outbreaks and 289 were under investigation.

The Premier said numbers weren’t entirely unexpected.

"We have made the point that with these stay-at-home restrictions only a week old, it will take some time to bring stability to the numbers and start to see a pattern where they are driven down," said Andrews.

"The life cycle of this virus means that actions you take today, the impacts... are not clear or well known or understood or reflected in data for at least a week, and to be safe, really, two weeks' time. That's why this is a six-week stay-at-home lockdown. That's three full life cycles of this virus."

200+ infections linked to aged care

The 6.00pm Nine News last night claimed that 200 people associated with aged care homes and home care are now COVID-19 positive.

We can’t verify this because the Department of Health does not count staff in the aged care figures. But 200+ appears plausible, when you consider the list below provided by nine of cases linked to major outbreaks, with 80 infractions across five of the 39 aged care homes with linked cases.

• 157 cases linked to Al-Taqwa College
• 37 cases linked to Somerville Retail Services in Tottenham
• 31 cases linked to Menarock Life Aged Care facility in Essendon
• 29 cases linked to JBS abattoir in Brooklyn
• 23 cases linked to Glendale Aged Care facility in Werribee
• 21 cases linked to Estia Health aged care facility in Ardeer
• 19 cases linked to the Northern Hospital
• 16 cases linked to the Alfred Hospital
• 16 cases linked to Brunswick Private Hospital
• 15 cases linked to LaManna Supermarket Essendon
• Six cases linked to HWL Ebsworth Lawyers in Melbourne
• Five cases linked to St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner

No doubt the challenge for aged care operators is that all staff that come in contact need to be sent home for 14 days isolation. as we saw with Newmarch House, what is this doing to the supply of qualified care manpower? We will look at this tomorrow.