While restrictions in regional Victoria were lifted at midnight on Thursday, Acting Premier James Merlino said the state’s latest lockdown would not be ending early because two cases of COVID-19 linked to Melbourne were found to be false positives.
The ABC reported that the false positive cases related to a woman who had been thought to have contracted the virus at a display home in Mickleham and a man linked to Brighton Beach Hotel. Health officials had originally said that the two cases were examples of about six examples of the virus being passed through “fleeting contact” between strangers.
As of midnight, last night, there were four locally acquired cases of COVID-19 cases according to the latest figures released by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
The department reported that there were 72 active cases in the state and 49,439 test results received over the same period. Yesterday 24,169 people were vaccinated for COVID-19 bringing the total number of vaccinations in the state to 557,794.
Mr Merlino said the state was vaccinating more people than any other state in Australian and called on all Victorians who were eligible to get vaccinated as it was the “only ticket out of the pandemic.”
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He said the spread of the virus was slowing thanks to the work of the state’s public health teams and the community which enabled the easing of restrictions in Regional Victoria.
On Thursday night Premier Dan Andrews issued a statement in which he called on Victorians to keep up the momentum to contain COVID-19 pandemic.
“Just because we’ve had to do this before, doesn’t mean it’s easy to do gain. Some of us will be tired. Some stressed. Some sick to the back teeth of this pandemic
“But please know that every individual effort you made today, and everything you’ll do tomorrow and every day after will save lives.
“Record tests, record vaccinations, record fight – we’re doing to protect our communities, our state and the entire country,” said Mr Andrews in his statement.
