THE Mildura community has been praised for doing the “hard yards” by getting more than 5000 tests for COVID-19 since the initial outbreak last weekend with no new cases recorded on Friday.
But Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has warned the entire country could go into lockdown unless the escalating number of cases out of Sydney was not contained.
Mr Andrews called for a “ring of steel” to be established around Sydney, policed by roadblocks and mobile checks, similar to what separated Melbourne from regional Victoria during the state’s longest lockdown last year.
He agreed with the NSW Chief Health Officer’s assessment that the Sydney outbreak was a national emergency and said NSW had a “national responsibility” to contain it.
“We will finish up with the whole country locked down if we don’t do this properly,” Mr Andrews said.
Victoria reported 14 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases, which are all linked to known outbreaks, but none of which were from Mildura.
COVID commander Jeroen Weimar said Mildura residents had responded well to come forward and get tested.
“(In) Mildura we are again seeing a really good set of testing days there — no further positive cases to declare today, which I am very pleased about,” Mr Weimar said.
“My thanks to the whole Sunraysia community for their support and the hard yards over the last few days of getting so many of you tested.”
Mr Weimar also praised visiting teams from both Bendigo Health and Goulburn Valley Health for “doing all that work”.
While there was a rush for testing and queues stretching for kilometres to the Mildura testing sites early this week, just a handful of those still wanting to get tested were at Mildura Recreation Reserve site by Friday afternoon.
Across the state, more than 43,000 test results were received in the 24 hours to midnight on Thursday, while 14,302 vaccine doses were administered at state-run sites during the same period.
Victoria’s current set of restrictions are set to be eased on Tuesday, but Mr Andrews said health authorities wanted to have as much data as possible before deciding when the lockdown would end.
