Vic lockdown extended, 92 new local cases

VICTORIA will remain in lockdown as the state records ninety-two new locally acquired COVID-19 cases, including more than thirty not yet linked to existing outbreaks.

“We see far too many cases today for us to seriously consider opening up later on this week,” Premier Daniel Andrews said.

He said he did not yet have advice on how long the lockdown imposed on August 5 should be extended for, but promised to examine different options as soon as the advice was available.

“It’s only fair that we be as up front as possible,” Mr Andrews said.

Sunday’s tally is a jump from the previous day’s local case figure of 64, and the highest number of new cases recorded since early September 2020 as the state battled the second wave of the virus.

It takes the number of active Victorian cases to 778, with about two thirds of those in Melbourne’s north and west.

“That is where the cases are and that’s where the extra effort has to be,” Mr Andrews said.

Western suburbs doctor Amrooha Hussain told reporters at Sunday’s press conference that entire families with young children had been infected, and she continued to see cases presenting late for COVID tests.

Another 12 cases were found in Broadmeadows, 12 in Newport, nine linked to earlier outbreaks in Glenroy, and four from a supermarket in Altona North.

One COVID case has been found in the Gippsland town of Traralgon, after the person went to a funeral in Melbourne.

The outbreak in Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley region has also grown with nine new cases there.

One case was also uncovered in Victoria’s hotel quarantine system.

Meanwhile Mr Andrews said the prime minister had promised him in a conversation on Saturday that NSW would no longer get “preferential treatment” in vaccine distribution.

“We didn’t begrudge them getting additional doses, but we’re locked down, they’re locked down, and the need is just as great here,” Mr Andrews said.

– BY AAP