Victorians are waiting hours just to be turned away from testing clinics as the state works to contain another coronavirus outbreak.
People rushed back from interstate last week as borders were being closed once again, but it has put pressure on the healthcare system.
"We've come back because they closed the border, so we rushed back and left our families behind on New Year's," one couple told 9News.
READ MORE: Victoria records three new locally acquired cases
"We're supposed to get tested as their regulation, and for two days now we've been turned away."
The state's COVID-19 response commander pleaded for patience as testing staff are brought back from leave.
"I am going to ask people to continue to persevere with us. That's why we've got probably an extra 30 per cent capacity in today compared to yesterday at our biggest centres," Jeroen Weimar said.
Opposition leader Michael O'Brien described the long queues and testing clinics over capacity as "an absolute shamble".
"We're seeing the wrong information being provided to people who have returned to Victoria. The government needs to fix this and fix this quickly," he said.
Today Victoria reported three new locally acquired cases from 22,477 tests. All three are linked to the Black Rock cluster which now stands at 21.
Thirteen cases attended the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant on December 21, and the other eight are close contacts.
But Victorian health officials are still working to track down the source of the latest cluster.
"We're looking at several lines of investigation, including one person who had been in Sydney, but outside the northern beaches area," Professor Allen Cheng said today.
Of the cases, 220 close contacts are in quarantine with another 359 secondary close contacts also told to isolate.
"With this number of close contacts, we're expecting at least some of them will become cases over the next week or so," Professor Cheng said.
There are now 51 potential exposure sites, for the full list of exposure sites in Victoria, click here for the DHHS list.
from 9News https://ift.tt/3n6Buf7
via IFTTT
0 Comments