Bendigo Health working to contain COVID outbreak

CONTACT tracing is underway in Bendigo, as concerns grow around the two exposure sites in the region.

An Axedale pub is listed as a tier 1 exposure site and anyone who visited that site between 11.45am to 1.30pm on Sunday, 23 May must get tested immediately and quarantine for 14 days from time of exposure.

Listed as a tier 2 site, anyone who was at Hairfolk at 33 Williamson Street on Saturday, 22 May between 9.40am and 10.10am should get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result.

A person who tested positive visited the hair salon, while it’s believed the same case attended a function at the Axedale Tavern, now over 100 guests from that venue are currently isolating.

CEO of Bendigo Health Peter Faulkner said the response to the two sites was immediate.

“We became aware of this around 4pm yesterday, we’ve had our public health meeting with staff, doing contact tracing throughout the night,” he said.

“Additionally, we popped up some extra testing resources for close contacts and we tested a number of those people last night not all results are back at this point.

“The results that are back to date are negative and we have a number pending so that remains a concern.”

Mr Faulkner said some guests at the Axedale function did not use the QR code on entry.

“Sometimes groups go in and one person will sign in for the group, that just slows contact tracing down,” he said.

He also did not rule out the possibility that the outbreak may grow in the region.

“There is every possibility there may be more exposure sites, so I certainly encourage everybody to keep a close eye on the news,” he said.

Queues for the Bendigo Health drive-thru testing site were backed up on Arnold Street this morning with wait times estimated to be over an hour.

“We do ask both in the testing realm where we have both the drive-thru testing and walk-up testing clinic that if there is a lot of demand that people please be patient,” Mr Faulkner said.

“Be kind to one another and we will do all that we can to ensure everybody gets tested as quickly as possible.”

“What we do know is those key public health defences of contact tracing and testing are absolutely essential to controlling and managing any outbreak or potential outbreak.”

Currently Bendigo Health has not identified any more positive cases, but Mr Faulkner encourages the community to continue to follow public health guidelines.

“As Victorians we’ve done this before, we know what we need to do, we need to do all of those sensible public health measures about good hand hygiene, about social distancing, about not going out if you don’t need to go out and wearing masks.”

This morning acting premier James Merlino announced no new restrictions, however said he will monitor the situation over the next 24 hours.