MAY 12, 2020 \ STARWEEKLY.COM.AU
Virus numbers spike By Tate Papworth Brimbank has the highest number of active COVID-19 cases Monday, 16 of 58 conirmed cases in the municipality were active. he number of cases has skyrocketed by almost 30 in the past fortnight following an outbreak at the Brooklyn-based Cedar Meats abattoir. Seventy-six cases have so far been linked to the factory, including one staf member at Sunshine Hospital. Two dozen hospital staf were forced to self isolate ater a worker from the factory, who had emergency surgery on a severed thumb, later tested positive for the virus. Western Health chief executive Russell Harrison conirmed the positive test on Wednesday.
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The assumption is that people are giving us the accurate story - Daniel Andrews
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“Unfortunately one of the Western Health staf members in self-quarantine following exposure to a patient who was later diagnosed with COVID-19, has since tested positive for the virus,” he said. “Western Health is providing all the necessary supports for the staf member, who continues to self isolate at home and we will continue to liaise closely with them.” On hursday, Premier Daniel Andrews defended his government’s handling of the outbreak. “I am very proud in the public health team in the response that they have provided to every positive case and this outbreak was singled out by Brendan Murphy, the chief medical oicer of the Commonwealth, singled this out at national cabinet as a model example of how to deal with an outbreak,” Mr Andrews said. he irst case within the abattoir was conirmed a month ago. he government said the infected worker at the time said they had not been at work for a number of weeks. Mr Andrews said he had no reason to think the government was provided false information.
Above: There have been 76 coronavirus cases linked to Cedar Meats in Brooklyn. (Damjan Janevski) 208195_01
Right: The COVID-19 team at Sunshine Hospital. (Jason South/The Age)
“Regardless of where you work, if you say, ‘I have not been to work for four weeks’, then we take you on face value. he assumption is that people are giving us the accurate story,” he said. “If we assume that everyone wasn’t, I don’t know if we could ever have enough contact tracers. We wouldn’t need 1000, we would need 100,000 perhaps. It would become impossible.”
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