/Victoria records five new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 – ABC News

Victoria records five new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 – ABC News

Victoria’s COVID-19 outbreak has grown to 45 cases, after five more cases were confirmed by the state’s health department.

Health authorities received 43,874 results yesterday after another big day of testing.

More than 16,700 doses of vaccine were administered.

Meanwhile, up to two residents at the Arcare aged care facility in Maidstone have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten.

The centre, in Mr Shorten’s electorate, was added to Victoria’s exposure site list yesterday after it was revealed a worker there tested positive to the virus.

Mr Shorten told ABC News Breakfast he has been in contact with the centre and understands the residents who have tested positive for the virus had been given one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

“It’s only secondhand reports from the facility, but the people who are sick actually had had a vaccination, so you need two, one is not enough,” he said.

Victorian health authorities are yet to determine how the worker contracted the virus.

Mr Shorten said he believed Arcare was doing a good job trying to address the situation.

“I think they’re right onto this, so my thoughts are with them and hopefully the patient can have their condition confirmed and treated perhaps at a hospital,” he said.

Ai-Lin Chang, whose grandmother is a resident at Arcare, has praised the response of staff at the facility, but said there was “a huge sense of uncertainty about what’s coming next”.

“Even though I have a lot of trust [in the] provider and I have a huge amount of trust, I guess, in the state’s response, given the lessons learnt from last year there’s a part of me that can’t help but think what don’t we know, what is this new variant and what threat does it pose?” she told ABC Radio Melbourne.

Ms Chang said her grandmother was given her first dose of vaccine three weeks ago, but said the federal government “could have done more at the time” to encourage aged care residents to get vaccinated.

“It was literally just filling out the form, there was no encouragement to get the vaccine, the risk of not getting the vaccine, or even an encouragement to do it for not just the person that is involved but the community that is around them,” she said.

More to come.