Health Minister Greg Hunt (pictured above) has revealed 213 aged care residents in Victoria have now tested positive to coronavirus across 21 aged care homes.
Another 38 homes have had at least one staff member who has tested positive, the Minister stated at a press conference yesterday.
In total, there are 447 cases linked to 35 aged care sites that have active cases.
These include:
- 73 cases linked to St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner (up from 69 yesterday)
- 67 cases linked to Estia Health in Ardeer (up from 54 yesterday)
- 55 cases linked to Menarock Life Aged Care in Essendon (up from 38 a week ago)
- 34 cases linked to Estia Health in Heidelberg (up from 26 yesterday)
- 33 cases linked to Arcare Aged Care in Craigieburn (up from 30 yesterday)
- 21 cases linked to Baptcare Wyndham Lodge in Werribee (up from 20 yesterday)
- 20 cases linked to Embracia Aged Care Moonee Valley in Avondale Heights (up from 18 yesterday)
Eight home care services have also had clients infected, with another four reporting positive cases among their staff.
Mr Hunt also commented on the decision of the Department of Health and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC), to step in at St Basil’s Home for the Aged in Fawkner where 73 cases have now been recorded.
“Additional staff have been brought in,” he said. “We are making sure that any residents who should be in hospital are immediately transported to hospital... There is also a process of reaching out to the families. It is a very stressful time for these families at St Basil’s, and they rightly want to seek information. We have stepped in.”
Federal Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Alison McMillan added that she had not heard any concerns of PPE shortages at the home in response to a question from a journalist, saying the nursing leadership team were all wearing PPE when she met with them on Wednesday.
“[They] provided me with a very clear understanding of all of the efforts that have [been] put in to ensure that they weren’t spreading this outbreak,” she said. “Many staff were very sad and disappointed [about] what had happened in their facility.”
Minister Hunt also pledged 400 aged care staff would be made available to support operators whose staff have been forced to go into self-isolation along with additional hospital beds and PPE.
“Wards have been opened within hospitals to ensure there is the capacity to receive patients that test positive. Masks have been made available, five million masks for aged care facilities within Victoria. And we have stood up five mobile testing teams to test staff around the institutions and if any institution has a positive staff member, all residents and all staff will be given tests on an immediate basis.”
However, Aged Care Minister, Senator Richard Colbeck, has separately reinforced the message that hospital transfers will not be for all residents.
“Some of them won’t want to go to hospital and some of them clinically won’t need to go to hospital,” he told Sky News. “We need to make sure that the capacity in the hospital system remains there to take care of those that genuinely need it. “And those that genuinely need it should and will go to hospital.”
Victoria has also recorded five more coronavirus deaths, three of them aged care residents – a woman in her 70s, a man in his 80s and a man in his 90s. A man in his 50s and a man in his 70s also died.
There have now been 29 COVID-19 deaths across the state since July 5, and 49 since the start of the pandemic – the same death toll as NSW.
In total, the state has 403 new cases on Thursday – its third worst daily tally, following the record 484 cases on Wednesday.
201 people are now in hospital with 40 in intensive case – the same number as Wednesday.
Of those who were in the ICU on Tuesday, two were in their 20s, two in their 30s, five in their 40s and seven in their 50s according to information released yesterday by the State Government.
A reminder that COVID-19 can also have a devastating impact on younger generations.
