Melbourne residents refuse to tell close contacts they’ve caught coronavirus

Residents in Melbourne are refusing to tell health officials who their close contacts are despite a huge surge in coronavirus cases. 

Those living in the west and north western suburbs have hampered contact tracing by not sharing information about where they have been and who their close contacts are.

Some people have been told they could have coronavirus up to five days after they came into contact with a known case, the Herald Sun reported.  

It means they could have infected dozens of people before they have been told to self-isolate.  

Victoria saw a frightening climb in cases on Tuesday recording 191 new infections – its worst number yet.

The whole state is now facing a total lockdown as the border between NSW and Victoria closes from midnight on Tuesday for the first time in 100 years. 

Those seeking a COVID-19 test are being urged to visit the drive through testing clinics at Melbourne Airport.

Nine tower blocks were placed under a strict lockdown on Saturday and residents are only able to leave with approval.

Suburbs in 12 postcodes have already been placed in lockdown and Premier Daniel Andrews is expected to confine all 6.5million Victorians to their homes as the outbreak leaves 35 people in hospital and nine fighting for their lives.       

Pictures from the locked down towers on Tuesday show firefighters dressed in hazmat suits preparing to enter the buildings and deliver milk and bread while dozens of police stand guard outside.

It comes as New South Wales Police and ADF soldiers set up road blocks and drones along the 1,000km-long NSW-VIC border before it is shut down at midnight for the first time since Spanish Flu struck in 1919.

Victoria’s new case total is the second-highest of any state after New South Wales recorded 212 new cases on 28 March. 

Earlier on Tuesday federal health minister Greg Hunt said broadening the lockdown in Victoria was on the table. 

‘I don’t think that anybody can rule out that if the disease continues to spread, there could be further restrictions,’ he told the Nine’s Today show.

‘I think it’s very important to be open and honest about that. At this stage, again, it appears primarily urban Victoria.

‘But we actually have to respond to the facts as they occur and we’ve always identified this notion of rings of containment, of isolating the hotspots and then working out from there.’  

Residents of the nine locked-down towers said they feel let down by a lack of communication, food and supplies.

The Melbourne Public Tenants Association, on behalf of the residents in the Flemington and North Melbourne estates, say residents have been left in the dark since the state government’s hard lockdown was enforced on Saturday.

In a letter to the federal Acting Chief Medical Officer, Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services, Premier Daniel Andrews and Victoria Police, the association describes how residents were forced to wait 24 hours for food and other essentials like baby formula, nappies and medication. 

When the food arrived it was ‘at best, questionable pre-packaged meat-like food items that do not look suitable for human consumption’.

‘Furthermore, the delivery of the food was tossed to the floor on a single piece of paper in front of the residents’ apartment doors in small portions of one food item per household,’ the letter said. 

NSW reported seven new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday from 9,746 tests, including a man who tested negative in hotel quarantine before returning home to Newcastle on Sunday and developing respiratory symptoms. He and his close contacts have been placed into isolation.

The other six cases were in travellers in hotel quarantine.

It comes ahead of Wednesday’s NSW-Victoria border closure, which was agreed to by the state’s premiers and the prime minister.

Since last Monday Victoria has detected 823 new infections, only 14 of whom are returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.

This is radically different from the spike in cases across several states in late March and early April which saw large numbers of returning Australians test positive.  

Locally acquired cases are more dangerous because the patients are not in quarantine and can more easily transmit the virus around the community.

Paul Komesaroff, Professor of Medicine at Monash University, told Daily Mail Australia the situation in Victoria, where 12 postcodes have been put back into lockdown, is alarming.

‘It is an extremely dangerous situation and the safety of the entire country is at stake,’ he said.

‘Clearly there is a major problem that has required draconian measures which should be supported by Victorians to protect their safety. 

Professor Komesaroff said he supported the border shut downs and localised lockdown measures which have proved successful in other countries such as South Korea and Singapore. 

‘This a very different situation that we haven’t seen previously and we have to do what he have to do,’ he said.  

There are 55 NSW-Victoria border crossings over more than 1,000 kilometres and they will be manned by police and soldiers with drones and road blocks.

Two probable coronavirus cases are being investigated in the Albury area. NSW Health on Monday evening said the two cases had returned positive results on preliminary testing in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District.

The department on Tuesday said the two cases were undergoing further testing but had not yet been included in the state’s confirmed case load.

One suspected case had recently been to Melbourne but returned before hotspot travel restrictions came into force.

NSW Health is setting up a pop-up clinic in Albury from Tuesday and is urging residents in the area with even mild symptoms to get tested.

Queensland recorded its first case of the virus in two weeks on Tuesday, a soldier who returned from overseas and tested positive in hotel quarantine.