3 years ago
The new virus casualty is an 80-year-old man in Victoria state. Australia has recorded 30 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours -- 20 cases in Victoria and 10 in New South Wales.
Taking the Covid-19 toll in the country to 103 with 7,521 confirmed cases, Australia reported its first coronavirus death in more than a month on Wednesday.
They said there were 141 active cases in the state with over 1,000 close contacts needing to be traced. Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said, “Seven (cases) are linked to known outbreaks.
One has been detected in hotel quarantine. Nine through routine testing and three other cases are under investigation.” The official said there was a risk of more cases being hospitalized.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australia is “as well prepared as any nation in the world” to stop the spread of coronavirus, but warned Melbourne residents to be diligent in following health norms.
Earlier, Victoria Health Minister Jenny Mikakos indicated the state’s effective reproduction number, which calculates the rate of virus transmission per person. Sutton said authorities wanted to keep Victoria’s effective reproduction number below one.“When it’s at two it means the active cases we have are doubling with each generation,” he said.
“But with the stabilization in numbers in the last two days I expect that it will go back down and I absolutely hope that we can get it below one and drive those numbers back down to zero,” the minister said.
