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A man in his 80s has died overnight from COVID-19 at a Melbourne hospital, taking the total number of lives lost to coronavirus in Victoria to four.
Key points:
- Up to 400 passengers arrived from Santiago, New Zealand, China, Doha and Canada today and were taken to hotels for self-isolation
- Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said 39,000 tests had been carried out in Victoria but the Australian Medical Association has called for that to ramp up
- The Health Department has created a dedicated website for healthcare workers to come out of retirement and help with the COVID-19 response
The number of positive COVID-19 cases in the state has risen to 769 after 84 more were confirmed overnight.
"We now have 193 people who have recovered, there are 21 confirmed cases of community transmission which remains unchanged, there are 26 people in hospital including four patients in intensive care," Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said.
The total number of cases includes 419 men and 346 women aged from three to 88, with 611 in metropolitan Melbourne and 139 in regional areas.
Elsewhere in the country, a 75-year-old woman who was a passenger on board the Ruby Princess cruise ship has become the second person to die from the virus in Queensland, taking the national death toll to 16.
The Victorian COVID-19 hotline is 1800 675 398. Further information is also available at the Health Department's COVID-19 webpage.
International arrivals confined to Crown hotel
Victorian Tourism Minister Martin Pakula said six international flights landed in Melbourne this morning and one more was due to arrive later today.
Up to 400 passengers were met by health officials for a medical check. They then boarded buses and were taken to hotels in Melbourne's CBD.
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Mr Pakula said the flights had arrived from Santiago, New Zealand, China, Doha and Canada.
"We have secured 5,000 hotel rooms for the purposes of this quarantine arrangement," he said.
Mr Pakula said there were security guards monitoring hotel rooms.
People crowding on beaches called out as 'stupid behaviour'
Ms Mikakos called out the "stupid behaviour" of people who crowded beaches along Victoria's coastline on Saturday.
"The only way these rules are effective is if everyone is complying with them," she said.
"It's not a big sacrifice to make to skip going to the beach today. People need to do some physical exercise; go for a walk, but try to make that as quick as possible and go home."
Ms Mikakos acknowledged concerns from private hospitals that feared they would have to lay-off staff unless the government replaced the lost revenue from banning non-urgent elective surgery.
She said the State Government had been having "constructive discussions with the private hospital sector" and would "utilise their capacity" as part of its COVID-19 response.
"We have also employed 200 nurses from the Epworth and Cabrini hospitals who are engaging in contact tracing," she said.
Doctors 'waiting too long' for tests
Ms Mikakos said 39,000 tests had been carried out in Victoria but the Australian Medical Association has called for that to ramp up.
The president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association, Julian Rait, said doctors were "waiting too long to receive test results".
"There's also a concern not enough tests are being done," he said.
"We think there needs to be an escalation of the tests given Victoria has 80 per cent of the population of NSW," he said.
As of Saturday, NSW had carried out 86,524 tests.
Ms Mikakos said NSW had to carry out more testing early on because the state had more positive cases than Victoria.
"The testing reflects the clinical need. If the criteria needs to be widened or changed that will be implemented," she said.
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Website set up for healthcare workers to come out of retirement
Last week, the State Government called on retired health care workers to come back to work to help with the coronavirus response.
More than 100 people had expressed interest in returning to work, including retired ambulance staff.
Ms Mikakos said the health department had created a dedicated website for retired workers to fill out a questionnaire so they could be matched with an appropriate position.
"The ANMF [Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation] is providing refresher training courses this week for retired nurses to come back and work in the health system," Ms Mikakos said.
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Topics: covid-19, vic, melbourne-3000
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