ADDITIONAL support staff were on their way from Bendigo and Albury Wodonga on Monday to support coronavirus testing in Mildura as authorities struggled to cope with high demand for tests.
“There is additional support coming,” Bendigo Health chief health officer Diana Badcock said.
The teams would set up a third testing stream at Mildura Recreation Reserve on Tuesday in a bid to reduce wait times, she said.
The news came after Sunraysia Community Health Services established a second testing site at Aerodrome Ovals on Monday to process the highest priority cases.
Ms Badcock said she was expecting more positive coronavirus tests to come through from the region in coming days after an “exponential explosion” of exposure sites.
“I would expect there to be more positive cases not just in Mildura but around the region,” she said.
The number of people who had been identified as having visited exposure sites or were close contacts of the two positive cases was “increasing all the time,” she said.
Testing is also available in Sea Lake and Wycheproof after an exposure site was identified at Wycheproof on Sunday.
Sunraysia Community Health Services processed 464 coronavirus tests at Mildura Recreation Reserve over a five hour period on Sunday, and a spokesperson said she expected Monday’s testing numbers, which were still coming in after 5pm on Monday, would “knock that out of the park”.
Testing got off to a slow start on Monday morning with Bendigo Health’s ICT systems down, which “caused delays” and forced staff to make records with pen and paper, Ms Badcock said, but the problem had since been rectified.
The town was gridlocked for the second day in a row with hundreds of cars waiting for hours in lines stretching for kilometres to get into the testing sites.
Ms Badcock urged anyone who had been to an exposure site to go into isolation at home.
“The most important thing is that people stay calm, stay kind to each other and isolate from other members from their family and household if they are either symptomatic or have been to one of the two sites,” she said.
Where to go for testing:
Go to Old Aerodrome Ovals if you have been to a Tier 1 exposure site. It will be open 9am to 4pm as long as it is needed.
Go to Mildura Recreation Reserve if you have been to a Tier 2 site or are symptomatic. It will be open 9am to 4pm as long as it is needed.
