Premier Dan Andrews has confirmed that Victoria has recorded 127 new cases of coronavirus across the past 24 hours, which represents the state’s largest single-day increase of positive cases yet.
Premier Andrews confirmed the figures in a press conference this morning, representing the first of a predicted string of big-number days as results from lockdown zone testing blitzes begin to roll in.
That total of 127 includes 34 cases connected to known outbreaks, 40 uncovered from routine testing, and a further 53 that are still under investigation.
Premier Andrews further confirmed that 16 of those confirmed cases were discovered in the public housing towers that are currently under rather punitive hard lockdown conditions, bringing the total number of cases discovered across the nine towers affected to 53.
That number represents the largest single-day increase in positive cases Victoria has seen since the onset of pandemic conditions in early March.
With a new total of 645 known active cases, Victoria has now hit a new peak for virus cases in the state. That total eclipses the previous high-water mark of 622, recorded on March 31st during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Victorian Chief Medical Officer Professor Brett Sutton stated that while the majority of cases are confined to the various “hot zones” that are “very much in that north-west corridor” of Melbourne, there are also is a “significant number” of positive cases “that are in the adjacent postcodes.” Previously “adjacent” postcodes 3031 and 3051 – covering Flemington, Kensington, and North Melbourne – were not initially included in the renewed lockdown order, but were added to the list on Saturday after a number of positive cases in the area.
“It’s not just in those restricted postcodes. There’s significant spillover and so to use the bushfire analogy – there are literally spot fires adjacent to those restricted postcodes,” Sutton stated.
It’s expected that these numbers will increase significantly as testing across Melbourne’s 12 lockdown postcodes continues; nearly 100,000 tests have been conducted in Victoria since Friday.
