Victoria has recorded 11 new cases out of 43,874 tests conducted in the past 24 hours, bringing the total infections of the outbreak to 54. Two aged care workers and an aged care resident tested positive, triggering a fear that the virus has spread to several aged care facilities.
Another worker and a resident at North Melbourne’s Arcare Maidstone aged care facility have also become infected after a female worker of the facility tested positive for the virus on Sunday.
“Arcare can confirm that unfortunately a second-team member and one resident at its Maidstone residence have tested positive to COVID-19,” Colin Singh, the facility’s chief executive said in a statement on Monday.
“The resident is displaying mild symptoms. However, we are transferring them to a hospital where their condition can be closely monitored. The team members also have mild symptoms and are recovering at home.”
The resident infected has received one Pfizer dose and was waiting for their second dose, while the second staff member was not vaccinated because she was on leave on May 12, when staff vaccination took place.
The first staff member, a woman in her 50s, had received her first COVID-19 vaccine dose on May 12. She is currently a “mystery case”, as contact tracing has not uncovered how she was infected.
Only a third of the facility’s 110 staff have been vaccinated so far, and 53 of 76 residents have received only one dose of Pfizer.
Thoughts go out to my local community in Melbourne today. Get vaccinated and keep up the good work, Victoria. https://t.co/SxEQ7yJg3C
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) May 31, 2021
Labor MP Bill Shorten, whose electorate of Maribyrnong covers the facility, urged the public to get vaccinated.
“Worryingly both the staff member who recorded positive and one resident, possibly two … (who) appear to have contracted COVID, were both vaccinated in the first round,” he told ABC on Monday. “The people who are sick had actually had a vaccination. You need two. One is not enough.”
Over 16,000 vaccine doses were administered at state-run sites in the past 24 hours to midnight.
Meanwhile, another aged care facility in Melbourne, BlueCross Western Gardens Sunshine aged care home located in the city’s western suburbs, has confirmed that it has one female worker infected over the weekend.
It is not clear yet if this worker is one of the two confirmed cases at Arcare Maidstone, ABC reported.
