With thousands of coronavirus test results still outstanding, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says the data will shape tomorrow's announcement about the easing of lockdown measures.
Follow today's events below.
Key events
Live updates
By Nicholas McElroy
Professor Sutton questioned about Cedar Meats response
Question:
On the Cedar Meats closure, you said if had known about the cases you would have closed it earlier. It was shut down on April 29. On the 22nd of April about half a dozen or so workers were identified as COVID-19 positive and they were put in hotel quarantine. Can you explain the discrepancies? It took a week to shut them down?
Professor Sutton:
“My recollection is there was only a few cases when that was raised with me, the shutting down of Cedar Meats and I gave my advice at that time to shut it down completely. So that’s my recollection."
Question:
But how was there six or seven workers identified from Cedar Meats and put into quarantine without the say so of your department (the DHHS) at that time? This is a week before you took the action to close down Cedar Meats?
Professor Sutton:
“I’m saying I shut down Cedar Meats as soon I was made aware of those cases."
Question:
Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen made this direction (to put place workers who had tested positive into hotel quarantine). How does the one hand not talk to the other hand?
Professor Sutton:
"I’ll have to come back to you on exactly what you’re referring to because I haven’t got that information in front of me."
Question:
It is all in the documentation that’s before the COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine enquiry.
Professor Sutton:
"Yeah, no, I’m happy to look at it."
By Alicia Nally
By Nicholas McElroy
Victoria's Premier has issues a word of warning about tomorrow's announcements
Coronavirus testing is being stepped up in Melbourne's northern suburbs with four of today's seven new cases linked to a growing outbreak.
The new cases are in the Preston area and include a student who attends East Preston Islamic College, which is now closed, along with Croxton School in Northcote.
Families and staff associated with both schools are being told to immediately get COVID-19 tests.
All but one of today's new cases is linked to known outbreaks.
Melbourne's 14 day average is now down to 5, while it's 0.2 in regional Victoria.
Premier Daniel Andrews says they need to see the results of thousands of tests before re-opening.
"We are still optimistic that we'll be able to have positive things to say but it's a note of caution The number of mystery cases remains at 10."
By Mary McDonald
By Nicholas McElroy
Victoria's daily COVID-19 press conference has finished.
Premier Daniel Andrews finished by urging anyone with "any symptoms whatsoever" to please come forward and get tested.
By Alicia Nally
Victoria's CHO Dr Sutton says he's not too concerned about the 10 mystery cases
And he was asked on withholding emails to the hotel quarantine inquiry.
Dr Sutton said he would not comment on that and would make appropriate submissions in coming days.
By Alicia Nally
Professor Brett Sutton says he's confident the current outbreak will be controlled
By Nicholas McElroy
No new cases recorded in Queensland
Queensland recorded zero new coronavirus cases overnight.
There are six active cases in the state.
By Alicia Nally
Is it realistic that a place like Northland shopping centre will open in the next week?
Mr Andrews said he didn't "think it was appropriate at this stage to make judgements one way or the other".
By Alicia Nally
Retailers won't get any early notice that they can open
Daniel Andrews said "when I stand and appear and make the announcement, that is when people can start planning for it".
"Beyond that, think there is a risk of preempting wherever it is we are now.
"There will be, there is our hope there can be that dark opening where we make an announcement on one day and the changes don't come into effect until a couple of days later, and then there is the notion of making sure that staff, owners are indeed permitted workers for the purposes of that opening and that opening has two parts to it.
"There is obviously getting the shop ready, whatever that might be, getting the business ready, but it is also getting the business COVID safe.
"So it is very, very important work.
"Noone should be assuming I'm making announcements and what the nature of those announcements are until they are in fact made.
"Because what the northern suburbs showed us and what the pandemic shows us is this thing moves silently, rapidly, and things change quickly."
By Nicholas McElroy
Follow the daily Daniel Andrews press conference livestream here
By Alicia Nally
Victorian Premier explained the changes to the contact tracing IT system
A reporter said there had been some dispute the old and new systems had actually been merged.
Mr Andrews said whenever and old system was migrated to new you have to keep the old system going.
"I'm not aware of any issues with that.
"That is the practice all the way IT systems work I am told."
He said he'd get information on where the DHHS was up to in regards to the merge.
By Alicia Nally
Mr Andrews was asked whether the northern suburbs of Melbourne could be targeted and the "rest of Melbourne get on with things"
The Premier argued the current approach was targeted and asking people who are close contacts to stay home "will be a feature of what opening up looks like".
And he ended up basically saying" "I don't think that will be the appropriate response."
"If they are all connected or linked and you have containment around then that is a much better situation than even a smaller number where there is no apparent link between those cases," Mr Andrews said.
"We will look at all those things based on the results we receive later today and into tomorrow."
By Jon Healy
Test results to inform tomorrow's announcement
As Mr Andrews said, getting results from the tests that are currently pending will be incredibly important in terms of what he announces tomorrow with regard to opening up.
He said health authorities and pathologists are "in for a very late night and a very early morning" to get as many test results as possible as soon as possible to inform their next steps.
"We know that there are thousands in the lab right now that will be processed today and will come to us later on this evening. Fairly late, though. And then there will be all of today's testing which will come to us tomorrow.
"So we just have to look at that very carefully. And what we are hopeful of is that there are connections and linkages between these cases and these cases do not speak to the virus being in the northern suburbs more than we had thought, so it is all about trying to find those linkages.
"A lot of people had banked tomorrow as the day where we would have absolute clarity about what the rest of October and November looks like. If we can do that we will. But the appropriate thing to do if you have thousands of tests in the laboratory being processed, you have two wait for the results.
"It would be wrong to call people to test and then make decisions without having looked at those test results. We will look at that as fast as we can and we will do what we are doing - the coronavirus detective work."
By Alicia Nally
Mr Weimar was asked if he though schools may have opened too early
He said no.
"If I look at the response of the school leadership of the schools that we are dealing with in this particular outbreak, they have taken prompt and swift action.
"We are talking about cases that happened on Monday this week.
"It is different to situations like Shepparton where we were catching up on events that happened weeks before.
"This is very new and moving quickly and we are moving very quickly to get ahead of it."
By Alicia Nally
On testing in the Broadmeadows public housing block
Mr Weimar said 86 people were tested in this block in the last two days and all the results were negative.
"There is a team which has continued to be on site and we tested half a dozen people yesterday," he said.
"Those results were all negative as well and we continue to support that block but it is not an ongoing part of our outbreak management."
There are no other public housing blocks being targeted for testing.
Authorities are simply following up on close contacts of the north Melbourne schools cases.
By Alicia Nally
The Professor is at the press conference
Is Brett Sutton there today?- where's wally?
He is.
No doubt he'll be asked a question shortly.
By Alicia Nally
The Croxton Special School student was most likely infectious while at school
Mr Weimar said the child's mother was the first case identified.
"When we tested her children, the two children tested positive," he said.
"Those children did attend the school before their positive test."
By Alicia Nally
A family connected to the Preston outbreak said they were confused about messaging
Mr Weimar said he "couldn't comment".
"I can confirm that the family at the start of the EPIC outbreak at the beginning of this week, certainly some of those family members speak excellent English and we have had an ongoing relationship with them going back to October 6," he said.
"There has been an ongoing daily relationship, contact with that family, around the individual cases, as the infection has moved through different members of the family and our information to them has been very clear.
"We, of course, understand there has been some misunderstanding that led to the child attending school on Monday and Tuesday when they were a close contact and expressly told not to and that child was called in for his day 11 test on Tuesday."
By Alicia Nally
Mr Weimar is confident of the latest outbreak is under control
He said authorities believed "there are connections that we are still narrowing down between those cases".
"We're getting outstanding support from the wider community. We're getting outstanding support from the schools. The real evidence will be in the testing results we have over the next few days.
"It is so important for us to have good, strong detailed testing results."
He said the positive case at Croxton Special School is a student, part of a family of four.
"That family of four are all positive," Mr Weimar said.
"That family of four are not connected to the households that we've been dealing with in the northern metro outbreak.
"We're still trying to establish the exact link, if any, between this new family of four and the wider metro north outbreak.
"This family of four have a child at Croxton Specia School and also have a child at EPIC."
By Alicia Nally
Almost 3,000 tests were undertaken in the northern suburbs, a 35 per cent increase on a similar day last week
Mr Weimar said that was "exactly what we need at this time as we really try to get our hands around all aspects of the metro north outbreak to fully understand any other positive cases we may have within our community".
"As it stands, we have 101 close contact associated with the East Preston Islamic College and our thanks to EPIC for their prompt action to close the school on Tuesday and the ongoing support of the entire community.
"Those 101 close contacts are quarantining effectively and they have 307 secondary contacts.
"All of those are being supported and worked through between colleagues and DHHS and Education.
"We also have 34 close contacts at Croxton Special School and we're working along with them very closely to ensure they're safe and well settled.
"There has been one positive case associated currently with that school.
"We have four close contacts that have had some contact with three other schools - Brooks Primary School that we discussed a few days ago and two other colleges."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTEwLTI0L2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWF1c3RyYWxpYS1saXZlLW5ld3MtY292aWQtMTktdmljdG9yaWEtZGFuaWVsLWFuZHJld3MvMTI4MDk3ODTSASdodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTI4MDk3ODQ?oc=5
2020-10-24 01:51:00Z
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