‘Not just Melbourne issue’ as virus spreads

By | January 1, 2021

The latest outbreak of coronavirus in Victoria has spread to the country with a case detected more than 130km from Melbourne.

Department of Health and Human Services testing commander Jeroen Weimar revealed on Friday one of the new positive cases was in Leongatha, which is located in South Gippsland southeast of Melbourne.

It comes as Victoria recorded five new cases of community transmission in the past 24 hours, all announced on Thursday.

Another three virus cases were recorded in hotel quarantine, taking the number of active cases in the state to 18.

“Do not think this is just a bayside suburbs, Mitcham issue, this is not only a Melbourne issue, this is a Victorian issue,” Mr Weimar said.

“The close contacts is quite a wide area.

“We have returning people from NSW across our entire state. We have people, I expect, with symptoms developing across our entire state, if you have symptoms, go to your nearest testing station regardless of where you are in Victoria.”

He said the case moved to their Leongatha residence fairly recently so they may not have had much exposure in the area during their infectious period, but anyone with symptoms should still go and get tested.

Wonthaggi Plaza shopping centre, also in South Gippsland, has also been listed as a public exposure site after a positive case shopped in Kmart for 15 minutes.

Coronavirus fragments have also been detected in a sample of wastewater taken from the inlet to the Lakes Entrance treatment plant on December 29.

The health department has urged anyone in the Lakes Entrance area even with mild coronavirus symptoms to get tested and stay home until they receive their result.

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They said there would be an increase in wastewater samples taken from Lakes Entrance following the “unexpected result”.

jack.paynter@news.com.au

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