There were seven new COVID-19 cases in Victoria on Wednesday, bringing the state’s total number of active cases to 182.
This is a 11% decrease on the 206 active cases reported a week earlier.
Of the active cases, 30 (16%) have been linked to aged care.
There were also only 30 cases linked to aged care – most them in staff rather than residents – down from 147 a fortnight earlier.
The state recorded five new deaths with four linked to aged care, including a woman in her 70s, two men in their 80s and two women in their 90s.
This brought the state’s death toll to 816.
And there were 23 Victorians in hospital, with none in ICU.
Daniel Andrews on costs on an extended lockdown
In his daily press briefing, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews acknowledged the costs of an extended lockdown could eventually outweigh the benefits at a certain point.
“These measures come with a cost. There is a public health benefit, but there is also a cost … and that is why it’s so difficult to impose restrictions like this,” he said.
“This is not an indefinite arrangement… At some point, the cost of the restrictions will be greater than the increased risk and the increased challenge for our public health team to keep the virus suppressed if we open earlier than we had planned.
“Some of those (costs) are measured at a very personal level, in terms of the health, both physical and mental, of individual Victorians and their families. Then there’s obviously a whole range of economic considerations beyond health.
“Weighing up those matters is very, very challenging but there is an enormous amount of thought, consideration and judgement that comes with that task.”
