Victoria has recorded 246 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19, as the state government expresses concern over the federal government's planned allocation of Pfizer doses for the remainder of the year.
Key points:
- The new cases were detected from more than 43,000 tests
- There are close to 1,000 exposure sites across the state
- A Melbourne hospital ICU director says he's preparing for "challenging weeks ahead"
Contact tracers have so far linked 90 of the cases to existing outbreaks, but the number of those people who were in the community while infectious is no longer being reported each day.
The cases were detected from 43,858 test results processed on Monday, when 32,300 doses of vaccine were delivered at state-run sites.
Victoria has recorded 246 new cases two days in a row. Similar daily numbers were last recorded in mid-August 2020, during the state's second wave.
Analysis by 7.30 this week has highlighted the concentrated delivery of vaccine doses to New South Wales in past months, as well as apparent extra weighting of future Pfizer shot allocations for the remainder of the year.
In a statement to 7.30, Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said it was "disappointing that the Commonwealth appears to be pursuing a national plan to vaccinate NSW at the expense of all other Australians".
Mr Foley said the state was "a little bit ahead" of schedule to reach its goal of 70 per cent of people aged over 16 having a first COVID-19 vaccine dose by September 23.
Meeting that goal would result in some slight easing of restrictions, including an expansion of the 5-kilometre travel limit to 10 km and three hours of outdoor exercise each day.
Data released Monday shows that 60.8 per cent of Victorians aged over 16 have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 37.8 per cent have had both doses.
One local government area, the Borough of Queenscliffe near Geelong, has become the first in Australia to have at least 70 per cent of people aged 15 and older fully vaccinated.
The Geelong, Warrnambool and south-west Victorian regions have the highest vaccination rates in the state, with more than 71 per cent of people aged 15 and over in both areas having had at least one dose.
The areas that have the lowest rates include Melbourne's north west, where the first dose rate is 53.1 per cent, and Melbourne's south east, which has a first dose rate of 54.9 per cent.
The state government has also flagged a potential earlier easing of restrictions in regional areas.
ICU head ready for 'warning' signal
Royal Melbourne Hospital's head of intensive care Chris Maclsaac has told ABC Melbourne's Virginia Trioli his team is preparing for a "challenging few weeks ahead".
"We're very hopeful we won't be overrun and that all the patients will receive safe care," he said.
Dr Maclsaac said he felt confident that the ICU had done enough planning to prepare for an increase in cases.
"The good thing from an intensive care capacity point of view is we get some warning," he said.
"By that I mean once the community rates go up, we know we'll expect a proportion of those to end up in intensive care units seven to 10 days after that, at the point when most people deteriorate."
He said if modelling showing Victoria could reach up to 4,000 cases per day panned out, those "extraordinary numbers will require extraordinary measures".
"I think that we're probably likely to cope but we probably have to significantly curtail all other hospital activity as best we can to try and make sure we have enough capacity to deal with it," he said.
Dr Maclsaac said although it was important to plan for the worst, he was hopeful those scenarios could be avoided.
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2021-09-06 23:45:17Z
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