Victoria has confirmed 471 new coronavirus cases overnight, down from the record-breaking tally of 725 recorded on Wednesday, but with 1,533 now linked to the state’s aged care services.
Eight more deaths were announced, with four linked to aged care facilities.
These deaths include two men in their 60s, three men and two women in their 80s and one woman in her 90s and bring the state’s total death toll to 170.
“Trying to predict where this wildly infectious virus will be in a day, let alone in six weeks, is really tough,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said.
“But the experts tell us, if we follow these rules, if we see this through, then we will drive these numbers down.”
There are now 7,449 active cases of COVID-19 in Victoria.
The major Victorian aged care outbreaks include:
- 169 cases linked to Epping Gardens Aged Care in Epping (14 new cases since Wednesday)
- 160 cases linked to St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner (1 new case since Wednesday)
- 144 cases linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Ardeer (5 new cases since Wednesday)
- 117 cases linked to Kirkbrae Presbyterian Homes in Kilsyth (3 new cases since Wednesday)
- 94 cases linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Heidelberg (1 new case since Wednesday)
- 83 cases linked to Arcare Aged Care Facility in Craigieburn (5 new cases since Wednesday)
- 80 cases linked to BaptCare Wyndham Lodge Community in Werribee (6 new cases since Wednesday)
- 72 cases linked to Aurrum Aged Care in Plenty (4 new cases since Wednesday)
- 72 cases linked to Glendale Aged Care Facility in Werribee (no new cases since Wednesday)
- 68 cases linked to Outlook Gardens Aged Care Facility in Dandenong North (5 new cases since Tuesday)
This means the top 10 homes account for 1,059 cases of Victoria’s 1,533 aged care infections. Five are Not For Profit and five are private operators.
Deputy CHO denies 1,000 a day prediction
Professor Allen Cheng, Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer, also appeared at the briefing, and touched on reports that the state’s number of new cases would reach over 1,000 a day in the coming weeks.
“I first went to check our internal modelling. I also checked with the Commonwealth, with Brendan Murphy’s team,” he said.
“We can’t find anything that looks like that.”
Victoria has avoided 20,000 cases: deputy CMO
Professor Cheng added case numbers in Victoria would be far worse if tougher lockdown measures hadn’t been introduced.
“I can probably give you a description of where we might have been,” he said.
“So, on June 25, we first hit 20 cases in this second phase. On July 11 – 16 days later – we hit 200 cases, or first hit 200 cases. So, what that would imply, if we had continued with that same growth rate, 16 days after that, which would have been July 27, we would have hit 2,000 cases and by next week, August 12, we would have had 20,000 cases.
“Clearly, we are not even at 2,000 (daily) cases, but certainly the numbers at the moment are certainly too high. We need to get that down.”
