Australian state leader says sick not isolating

Australia's hard-hit Victoria state reported a record 484 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and health authorities warned that numbers could continue to rise. The origins of the strains of the virus that infected the 15 were Victoria, New South Wales Chief Health officer Kerry Chant said. Queensland state reported one new case, a returned traveler who was diagnosed in quarantine.


PTI | Melbourne | Updated: 22-07-2020 14:36 IST | Created: 22-07-2020 14:28 IST
Australian state leader says sick not isolating
Representative image Image Credit: ANI
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Australia's hard-hit Victoria state reported a record 484 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and health authorities warned that numbers could continue to rise. With Australia's second-largest city Melbourne now in lockdown for two weeks, authorities had hoped the infection rate would begin to plateau.

“Certainly we're at a really, really challenging phase of this pandemic,” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said. “We can't necessarily expect numbers to go down. I think that will be an even greater challenge in days ahead. That means that we're going to look at 500-600 cases per day. I absolutely don't want us to go there,” Sutton added.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said people had to self-isolate when they became sick. He said nine out of 10 people did not self-isolate between having symptoms and being tested. More than half did not self-isolate between when they were tested and when they got the results.

Andrews also announced two more deaths, both men in their 90s, bringing the national death toll to 128. Wednesday's new cases surpassed a previous record of 428 set on Friday.

Face masks will become compulsory from Thursday for residents in lockdown regions when they leave their homes. Six prisons in Victoria were placed into total lockdown on Tuesday after a staff member tested positive at one of the crowded facilities.

Neighboring New South Wales state reported 16 new cases on Wednesday. One was a returned traveler who was diagnosed in hotel quarantine in Sydney. The other 15 were linked to known clusters. The origins of the strains of the virus that infected the 15 were Victoria, New South Wales Chief Health officer Kerry Chant said.

Queensland state reported one new case, a returned traveler who was diagnosed in quarantine. In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region: Just days after South Korean officials hopefully declared the country's COVID-19 epidemic was coming under control, health authorities reported 63 new cases. South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said at least 36 came from the Seoul area. The KCDC didn't immediately confirm whether the numbers included a cluster at a front-line army unit in Pocheon, where at least 13 troops have reportedly tested positive. The KCDC said 34 cases were tied to international arrivals. The country had reported four local transmissions on Monday, the lowest in two months, prompting a celebratory tweet from President Moon Jae-in.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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