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Victoria has recorded 21 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases, almost half of which were in the community while infectious, while a one-year-old is among six new locally acquired cases from Queensland.
The Australian Capital Territory has registered a new locally acquired Covid-19 case, close contact with an existing case.
All of the Victorian cases are linked to previously reported infections when 11 were in quarantine throughout their infectious period. The state now has 163 active cases, three in hospital including one in intensive care.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said that with cases erupting in several Melbourne suburbs, vaccination efforts needed to be stepped up.
“We are increasing the capacity of existing centers with more stands and our reservation system is constantly updated, as the supply increases, to accommodate a new supply,” he told reporters on Saturday.
“To further meet the increased demand that we are seeing from Victorians to come forward and be vaccinated, we will be establishing more drive-thru sites, particularly in the northern part of the Wyndham area in the south- east of Melbourne and in the north of the Hume Whittlesea region.
Victoria administered a record 29,490 doses of the Covid vaccine in the 24 hours leading up to Friday evening and performed 33,675 tests for the virus in the same period.
Meanwhile, Melbourne’s Chadstone Mall has been declared a level two exhibition site. Anyone who visited the country’s largest mall between 4:26 p.m. and 5:40 p.m. on August 7 was ordered to get tested and self-isolate until they tested negative. The Coles supermarket within the complex has also been listed.
There are now over 450 exhibition venues in Melbourne in total, including the Highpoint Shopping Center and several large apartment buildings.
Of the 21 new infections reported on Saturday, 15 are linked to a growing cluster in the northern suburb of Glenroy, which has been triggered by mysterious cases in several households.
Of these, 10 are linked to Glenroy West Elementary School.
“Although we have genomic links, we still do not have a source of infection for a number of these positive cases,” Foley said.
Victoria’s Contact Tracing Secretary Kate Matson said there were eight ongoing mystery cases in the city of Melbourne, Glenroy, Melton South, Middle Park, West Brunswick and Wynham Vale, as well as those identified at Newport and West Footscray.
“We are very concerned about what we are seeing in Melbourne,” she said. “We won’t have unrelated cases if people show up for testing as soon as they can, at the first sign of symptoms.”
Matson said there were over 14,000 primary close contacts across Victoria. Some 650 people had been cleaned in the past two days as the state’s household engagement program made a record 1,277 visits on Friday.
Melbourne is in week two of its sixth lockdown, set to contain several outbreaks of Delta variants.
The new Queensland cases are all linked to the Indooroopilly cluster without any infectious diseases in the community, bringing the total number of cases in this cluster to 143.
The cases include the one-year-old brother of an existing case and five adults linked to Brisbane Boys’ High School and Ironside Public School.
Queensland Minister of Health Yvette D’Ath said the one-year-old was hospitalized in stable condition. She said the case, the youngest in the current group, shows how easily the Delta strain infects children.
Deputy health director Dr James Smith said he hopes children under 12 will soon become eligible for the vaccine.
He said 8,000 people remained in quarantine on Saturday, up from 19,000 a few weeks ago.
D’Ath said the Queensland government has been in talks with New South Wales on whether further restrictions are needed for border communities like Tweed Heads.
The new ACT case brings its epidemic to seven, with the territory on lockdown until at least Thursday.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said genomic sequencing had confirmed that the source of the ACT outbreak was linked to “several cases in greater Sydney”.
“I’m glad we locked down when we did, it was definitely the right move and clearly reduced the risk to our community,” he told reporters in Canberra.
Friday was “a record-breaking day of testing in the ACT,” with 4,500 tests completed and hundreds more already completed by Saturday morning, Barr said.
Asked whether the lock on ACT could be lifted sooner, he said “the closer we get to zero, the closer we are to the exit from the lock.”
Barr acknowledged that people had faced “significant delays” at testing sites.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said a number of cars were turned down for testing on Friday, but numbers were increased at testing sites.
“It was very disappointing to learn that some additional cars had to be returned quite late last night despite waiting very long hours,” she said. “We apologize for the effect of this and understand their frustrations.”
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Kerryn Coleman said Saturday’s new case was close contact with an existing case, but did not confirm whether it was linked to Gold Creek School in northern Canberra .
It comes after a student at Gold Creek School tested positive on Friday, with authorities confirming the 14-year-old was contagious while in school from Monday August 9 through Wednesday August 11.
All students and teachers in the school are treated as close contacts, and students and staff at Saint-Esprit Catholic Primary School are considered casual contacts, with contextual testing sites open at both schools.
There are approximately 4,500 close and casual contacts under investigation and over 25 exposure sites listed on the government ACT website.
The territory’s first local case in 13 months was confirmed Thursday, a man in his 20s with the Delta strain.
Federal support has been made available to workers who are wasting hours and businesses forced to temporarily shut down during the seven-day lockdown.
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