Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews held his daily coronavirus briefing on Sunday to provide updates on the spread of COVID-19 in the state.
Here are the main points he made.
Victoria records 394 new cases and a record 17 deaths
Mr Andrews announced 394 more coronavirus cases had been confirmed since Saturday, with 17 people dying from the virus in that time.
The deaths include two males in their 50s, four males in their 70s, four females and two males in their 80s, as well as two females and three males in their 90s.
Ten of those deaths, and 1,748 cases in total, have been linked to outbreaks in aged care.
"I have no further details of any of those. But I'm certainly not briefed that any of them are healthcare workers," Mr Andrews said.
There are 14,659 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Victoria, with 634 Victorians in hospital, 43 of those in intensive care.
He said 26 people were on ventilators.
The state currently has 7,854 confirmed active cases of the virus.
He said about 500 of those cases are in regional Victoria, with the great majority in metropolitan areas.
Of those active cases, 994 are healthcare workers.
Unknown sources of infection pose biggest challenge
Mr Andrews said 2,758 cases in the state were from an unknown source — an increase of 174 since Saturday.
He said those "mystery cases" pose the biggest challenge to Victorian health authorities.
These cases are also referred to as "community transmission" by health experts.
"Even large numbers in known contained outbreaks are, to a certain extent, less significant than the smaller number of cases where we simply can't find the circumstance or the point of origin," Mr Andrews said.
"Where did that person get the virus from? They're the ones that are incredibly challenging from a containment point of view, and that's what's made fundamentally necessary these really challenging settings, these really difficult decisions we've had to make to drive down movement, and therefore, drive down the number of cases."
Mr Andrews said a total of 1,801,385 tests have been processed in the state since the start of the pandemic.
He said 41,416 tests were processed in the last day alone.
$59.7 million in funding for mental health services
Victoria's Minister for Mental Health Martin Foley announced $59.7 million in funding to tackle mental health problems arising from the pandemic.
Mr Foley said the funding was in response to the increasing demand for acute services in clinical settings and the broader Victorian community.
He said there had been a 23.3 per cent increase in Victorians presenting at acute settings with a mental illness since the end of July.
Mr Foley said the funding was aimed at extending mental health services and community mental health programs run Monday to Friday to seven days a week, as well as extending daily operating hours.
The funding will also fast-track recommendations from the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health system, by adding 144 beds in the Barwon region, western suburbs, northern hospital catchment and Melbourne mental health catchments.
"We know that particularly at the moment, we want to keep those people with mental illness away from emergency departments," he said.
"Emergency departments are busy at the best of times, particularly now in the height of a pandemic.
"We want to make sure that we keep those people who need support for mental illness with the support that they need in the community."
Depression and anxiety rising
Extra funding has also been allocated to further roll out the Hospital Outreach Post-Suicidal Engagement (HOPE) program across the state.
Mr Foley said the program was aimed at supporting Victorians suffering depression and anxiety due to the stress of the pandemic.
"The pandemic is stressful. The pandemic is seeing anxiety and depression levels rise quite substantially, but there is help out there. There is support out there," he said.
"And all levels of government are cooperating [at] an unprecedented level with record levels of support to make sure that message of hope, of resilience and recovery is at the forefront of what we do.
"We know that the greatest indicator to prevent someone's suicide is to deal with that person in the community when they've expressed suicide ideas or attempted suicide in the past.
"And the best way to do that is to use our links in our community sector, in our hospitals and in those communities, wrap services around people to make sure that we give them a pathway to recovery."
He said Victoria has seen a 9.5 per cent year-on-year increase of presentations for self-harm in emergency departments since the end of July.
Of those cases, there had been a 33 per cent increase in the number of people under 18 presenting with self-harm.
Extra funding to counsel nurses, midwives and carers
Mr Andrews announced $250,000 in additional funding for a counselling service for nurses, midwives and personal care workers.
He said healthcare workers were facing a "very challenging set of circumstances", especially nurses and other workers who have gone into aged care settings.
"You can't unsee what you've seen. There is a degree of trauma, a degree of previously unknown levels of really, really challenging circumstances," he said.
"It's an incredibly difficult area in many of the settings. That's not to say it's easy across the board. Our health heroes are doing an amazing job and it's appropriate that we stand with them."
The funding is additional to $350,000 in funds provided for such counselling services earlier this year.
More families planning funerals
Mr Andrews said a failure of people following the coronavirus restrictions in the state meant "sadly, tragically … more families are planning funerals".
"I do not want a situation where the bad behaviour, the poor choices of a smaller number of people in any way detract from, I think, a growing number of Victorians who are doing the right thing," he said.
"I've had to stand here the last few days and report two people in their 30s who have died. Just today — two people in their 50s. The notion and around the world, people who are otherwise healthy of all ages, have died because of this virus. It's a novel virus, it's called that for a reason. We don't know everything about it.
"There's growing global evidence that this is not like a cold where you simply get over it and a week or so later, you can barely remember that you had it.
"There are growing numbers of people across the world who are reporting that this is lingering like a chronic condition — like a chronic illness where there is an impact over a period of time."
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2020-08-09 03:50:00Z
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