No new cases in Bendigo

MORE than seven-hundred COVID-19 tests have been recorded across the Loddon Mallee region, with no new positive cases recorded since yesterday’s announcement of exposure sites.

CEO of Bendigo Health Peter Faulkner said the clinic screened 440 tests yesterday and provided additional resources to help conduct more than 260 tests in Cohuna.

“We’ve received no advice of any positive results from those tests but there will be a number of tests pending,” he said.

“We will maintain those resources, there’s obviously a high interest in being tested, which is the right thing to do, so we’ll make those resources available.”

Testing hours at the Bendigo Health screening clinic have been extended to 6.30pm.

As part of the state’s snap seven-day lockdown, elective surgery has been put on hold, which Mr Faulkner described as an “appropriate and necessary” step.

“This enables us to keep our community safe by not bringing people unnecessarily into a high-risk environment,” he said. “Secondly, it also enables us to deploy staff to other priority areas.”

No visitors are allowed at the hospital or in aged care except for compassionate reasons, as a support partner for birth, or a parent to accompany a child.

“We had already put in some restrictions as from yesterday, particularly in light of a risk of an outbreak in Bendigo,” Mr Faulkner said.

“We do have visiting pods in aged care so we can have non-contact visits and they’ve continued, and we welcome people to use those.”

For vaccinations, the State Government announced that people aged 40-49 can now book their COVID-19 vaccinations.

“At this point we will be able to accommodate additional vaccinations, but there will be some delays,” Mr Faulkner said.

“For those in that age group, eligibility for Pfizer vaccine, it is imperative that they book for that it is not a walk-up like it is for AstraZeneca.”