An aged care facility and kindergarten in Melbourne have been closed after staff members were diagnosed with coronavirus.
Key points:
- A carer at Reservoir's Embracia aged care and a kindergarten teacher at Macleod Preschool both tested positive to coronavirus
- The kindergarten is closed for a thorough clean and the aged care home is in lockdown
- Legislation will be introduced into Parliament to strengthen nurse-to-patient ratios
A total of 10 more COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed in Victoria, taking the state's total to 1,663.
One new case was detected in a carer at Embracia aged care in Reservoir.
All staff and residents will today be tested for COVID-19 and the facility is in lockdown.
Another new case was detected in a kindergarten teacher at Macleod Preschool, which has been closed today for a thorough clean.
The cases of both the kindergarten teacher and aged care worker were detected through routine testing.
Victorian Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen said the kindergarten teacher "did the right thing" by getting tested when she noticed symptoms.
"We consider people to be infectious for two days prior to their symptom onset so that is why the kindergarten has been included as an exposure site," Dr van Diemen said.
"They attended prior to being symptomatic, not whilst symptomatic, but whilst they were infectious.
"They did exactly what we want all Victorians to do, which is got tested as soon as they got symptoms and kept themselves at home until they got a result."
All children in the teacher's class are considered close contacts and will have to self-isolate at home for two weeks.
As of Monday night, that included at least 12 children and eight staff.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said the Embracia aged care home was now "in lockdown" and all staff and residents would be tested.
"Even one case in an aged care home is classified as an outbreak," she said.
"It's taken very, very seriously because we know the particular vulnerability that… nursing homes have."
Guests moved from Rydges on Swanston as outbreak grows
Four of the state's 10 new cases are linked to the outbreak at the Rydges on Swanston hotel, bringing the total number of cases in the cluster to 12.
All four new cases are close contacts of known cases and they are all in self-isolation.
None of the new cases were staff members.
Dr van Diemen said health authorities were yet to determine the exact cause of the outbreak at Rydges on Swanston, where returned travellers had been serving mandatory quarantine.
She said staff from the Department of Health and Human Services were taking a precautionary approach and had quarantined large numbers of hotel and departmental staff who had worked there across a number of days.
Guests have now been moved to a different hotel, because it had become difficult to adequately staff the hotel because so many workers had needed to be quarantined.
"We know [the outbreak] is linked to other cases in returned travellers but we're still undertaking investigations as to exactly how this particular cohort of staff were exposed," Dr van Diemen said.
Today's four other new cases are under investigation after being detected through routine drive-through or pop-up testing.
Keilor Downs College reopens but Holy Eucharist remains closed
Dr van Diemen said Keilor Downs College, in Melbourne's north-west, would reopen today after being shut down following a family outbreak of COVID-19 last week.
Dr van Diemen said Holy Eucharist Primary School in St Albans South, which closed last week for cleaning after students tested positive to the virus, was likely to reopen tomorrow.
Students are learning remotely in the meantime.
Dr van Diemen said the school closures were "precautionary" and no cause for concern.
"We haven't seen [the virus] spreading within schools, all of our cases thus far have been teachers or students who have acquired the illness outside of the school," she said.
"The idea of closing the schools for those times to do the cleaning, to undertake the appropriate levels of contract tracing, is so that we don't see spread among schools."
New legislation introduced to strengthen nurse to patient ratios.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos announced legislation would be introduced to Parliament today to strengthen nurse and midwife-to-patient ratios.
The new ratios will create a further 500 nursing and midwifery positions, building on the additional 600 positions created by ratio changes last year.
"We know that these ratios deliver better care to patients," Ms Mikakos said.
"I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our nurses and midwives.
"They have been facing very anxious times in responding to patients coming in with coronavirus but also supporting and caring for patients, not knowing ... whether potentially they may have that virus — so we thank them for their selflessness."
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said the ratio changes were a welcome relief.
"For almost 15 years we had been struggling and had found it very difficult to get any improvement in the ratios," she said.
"[The changes] needed to happen to reflect the increased complexity and the increased demand on our health system as a result of the growing population here in Victoria and changes to the health system."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMib2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA2LTAyL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWNhc2VzLXJpc2UtYnktMTAta2luZGVyZ2FydGVuLWFnZWQtY2FyZS1pbi1sb2NrZG93bi8xMjMxMDQ2NNIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjMxMDQ2NA?oc=5
2020-06-02 01:14:21Z
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