Surge in Australia's Victoria Covid-19 Cases Prompts Addition of Hospital Beds

Both exceed the previous record of 212 in New South Wales state during the first peak of the pandemic.

Read also: First Covid-19 Vaccine in US Ready for Final Testing

“It’s a big number. It needs to turn around," Victoria Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said of the 317 new cases.

“In some ways, I expect it to turn around this week. But as I’ve always said, it’s no guarantee. It’s upon all of us to be able to turn this number around," Sutton continued.

Given the week the lockdown has been in effect, the incubation period of the virus and the time for cases to be confirmed and counted, “we would really expect a plateauing in the next couple of days,” Sutton said.

“But we cannot be complacent and expect that’s going to happen automatically,” said Sutton.

New South Wales, the only other state regarded as an active Australian virus hot spot, reported 10 new cases on Thursday.

Australia enjoyed similar success as neighboring New Zealand in suppressing the spread of Covid-19 in the early weeks of the pandemic.

Australia adopted a suppression strategy while New Zealand pursued full eradication.

The strategy has succeeded in New Zealand, which has gone 76 days without a community-spread infection and has active cases only among quarantined people who traveled abroad.

Just as Australia was lifting its lockdown restrictions, breaches of infection controls in hotel quarantine led to a community spread in Victoria state. 

(Writer: AP) 

Source: https://apnews.com/6a64dee899e2424d603807845d435df2

https://apnews.com/171dc7edfef5391b300e10991082f927