Victoria Staying On Par Amid Fears Over New Omicron Strain

Victoria reported a slight dip in cases on Monday with 1007 new infections and sadly three more lives lost to Covid-related deaths.

There are 11,501 active coronavirus cases, with increased hospitalisations recording 300 people in hospital, while 45 of those are in ICU and 17 are on ventilators.

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Another 51 people are in intensive care with Covid, but the health Department have confirmed their infections are no longer considered active.

The new cases were detected from 48, 397 swabs collected on Sunday, while 1,813 vaccine doses were administered at state-run hubs, with more at GP clinics and pharmacies.

As of Friday morning, more than 90 per cent of Victorians aged over 12 are now fully vaccinated.

Meantime, businesses leaders are calling for calm, with one infectious diseases expert calling for Australia's borders top close.

It comes as two confirmed cases of the Omicron Covid strain have been recorded in Sydney.

Professor Mary Louise McLaws said Australia needs to go hard and fast with international border restrictions again.

"We need to learn from our mistakes and one of the mistakes was we didn't close the border to all country's back in March last year, and we had a surge in cases, from America, from Europe that we didn't expect"

- Prof Mary Louise McLaws

Meanwhile, Chair in Epidemiology at Deakin University, Professor Catherine Bennett is comfortable with Victoria ordering people from 'at risk' African countries into fourteen days quarantine.

"At the moment, it’s important that if we do, if we've people going into home isolation that we are monitoring that very closely," she said, "but at the same time focusing on those people that really are at most risk"

"You don't want to overload your hotel quarantine by putting everybody in there when some people are at extremely low risk"

- Prof Catherine Bennett

Victoria's Health Department said returned travellers from countries of concern had so far tested negative for the Omicron strain.

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