MILDURA has recorded a second positive COVID-19 case within a week as the Victorian Government nominated the region as a priority area for its community pop-up vaccination program.
Victoria’s deputy chief health officer Dan O’Brien said on Sunday the new Mildura case was a primary close contact of a known case who had been in quarantine for more than a week before diagnosis.
The additional case prompted the Department of Health and Human Services to name a new, secondary public exposure site at a Mildura playground that was visited by the case more than a week ago.
Ontario Heights Playground, on Sherring Way, was visited by a positive case on Saturday, September 4, between 4.30pm and 6pm.
The playground was listed as a tier 2 exposure site and anyone who was there between those times has been urged to get tested urgently and isolate until they return a negative result.
Dan Murphy’s on Fifteenth Street remains a tier 2 exposure site for anyone who attended the outlet on Friday, September 3, between 3pm and 3.35pm.
The new Mildura case was one of just five new positive results in regional Victoria on Saturday, taking the total number of cases in the local government area to 13, including two active cases in Mildura’s 3500 postcode.
On Sunday the government also announced that Mildura would be one of 100 priority postcodes across the state to get additional access to vaccines.
Using supply secured through agreements with Singapore and the United Kingdom, the new vaccination program will cover 100 postcodes at community and school-based pop-ups in areas that need them most, and where barriers to vaccination may exist.
Five community-based pop-ups and eight school-based pop-ups will begin administering vaccinations over the next two weeks, initially in Melbourne’s northern and western suburbs.
The number of school-based pop-ups has been forecast to expand rapidly, with about 70 school sites eventually earmarked for all members of the community.
Sixty open-access state-run centres are operating across Victoria and additional sites are opening each week.
Health Minister Martin Foley said the new pop-up sites would be established in areas with identified vulnerabilities and barriers to access.
Meanwhile, New South Wales’ Far West Local Health District reported seven cases of COVID-19 to 8pm Saturday night, including two cases that were previously reported in another jurisdiction, bringing the total number of cases reported in the district to 155.
Of the seven new cases, four were in Broken Hill and three were in Wilcannia and all were in isolation.
The district’s total number of recovered cases is 67 (five from Broken Hill, 62 from Wilcannia) and the total number of active cases is now 88.
