MILDURA residents will know on Thursday morning when they will emerge from lockdown.
Fifteen new cases of COVID-19 were detected in the Local Government Area following testing on Tuesday — more than double that recorded the previous day — however the Victorian Government says the region is “tracking in a pretty good place”.
Victoria’s COVID-19 Response Commander Jeroen Weimar said residents in north west Victoria had done a “phenomenal” job to raise the number of first vaccine doses to 95 per cent of the population and more than 63 per cent fully vaccinated.
Mr Weimar said a decision on the timing of Mildura coming out of lockdown would be imminent.
“We’re reviewing Mildura again today (Wednesday) and we’d hope to land and make a very clear announcement tomorrow (Thursday) morning,” Mr Weimar said.
“Talking to the team in Mildura this morning … we think it is tracking in a pretty good place at the moment, we’ll take a review tonight and make a final decision tomorrow morning.”
Mr Weimar said there had been “phenomenal work by all the local players” in response to the Mildura outbreak.
He said that while the government would have liked to have seen fewer than 15 new cases, most were linked.
“We understand they are all within existing households — there’s two new households in that set, but, again, we understand the linkages between them,” Mr Weimar said.
“Again, we have seen a phenomenal testing response in Mildura over the last few days — over 1000 tests done yesterday (Tuesday) — a really consistent performance by the whole Mildura community to come out and get tested and also to get vaccinated,” he said.
“We have seen a significant increase in vaccination levels now over the last 10 days in Mildura — we have risen up to a 95 per cent first dose rate — higher even by regional Victoria standards — but the second dose rate has increased by more than 12 percentage points from 52.5 per cent 10 days ago to over 63 per cent yesterday (Tuesday).
“I really want to thank people in Mildura for coming out and getting vaccinated.”
Melbourne residents are on track for an easing of restrictions from midnight Thursday, while Mildura’s seven-day lockdown is due to expire at midnight Friday.
