Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer, Dr Annaliese van Diemen, says the state has learnt from watching the Newmarch House outbreak – which has been linked to the deaths of 19 of its residents – and will not go down the same path.

“In Victoria, we consider a single case in a nursing home an outbreak,” she said. “We decided quite early on we didn’t want to wait for a second case.”

As we reported yesterday, a number of aged care homes in Melbourne went into lockdown after single residents produced either positive or inconclusive results for COVID-19 – resulting in all cases being treated as positive by both the providers and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Under the current Department of Health guide on outbreak management, an outbreak is determined by the ‘two in three’ rule i.e. if two people in three days become sick with the symptoms and at least one of these has a positive test for COVID-19, that is considered an outbreak.

But Dr van Diemen says they are handling the Melbourne cases as if they were major outbreaks.

“A subsequent negative test doesn’t negate the first positive test,” Dr van Diemen added – which is why the case at HammondCare’s Caulfield village is still be treated as a positive case despite a negative follow-up test.