BREAKING: Residents in Melbourne's south-east who visited other households in breach of stage four lockdown restrictions have driven a COVID-19 cluster that has spread to 34 people.
"One of the reasons why the current restrictions ask us not to have households communicating with each other, or contacting each other, or sharing each other over this current phase of our restrictions is because of the inherent risks around that kind of contact and around close contact between different houses and this is what's been playing out within Casey," he said.
"We have been talking to youth groups ... and talking to frankly the entire community to ensure we get the clear message. Number one, you cannot and should not mix across different households." "I cannot rule out and none of us would rule out that there may not be additional cases beyond the 34. That's why it is so, so important if you have any symptoms at all ... come forward and get tested. That is how you keep it at 34 and not see the things spread out to 340."
"How big your house is, no matter how big your bank balance is, if you go visiting and you have this, you will take it with you. That is the key."He said the government would start door-knocking houses, as authorities did when clusters emerged in Broadmeadows in the city's north, if necessary. "They may be doing things like Uber driving … there is a financial imperative for them to keep going to work, or they don’t get paid," Dr Verma said.
"I just don't think that's a fair reflection of the very high level of awareness across the Victorian community." "We think that most of the cases are linked between contact between these households. But there has been visits to Fountain Gate and we are not aware of any links of transmissions in that setting, but obviously we want people to come forward for testing if they are unwell."The move to stamp out the outbreak in Melbourne's south-east comes after 28 cases were recorded on Thursday and 42 cases on Wednesday and Tuesday.
There are now 920 active cases in Victoria, including 30 cases in country areas where lockdown restrictions eased earlier this week."There is just one new case in regional Victoria, which I believe is in that Geelong corridor."
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