A three-year-old child and a woman in her 50s who've tested positive for COVID-19 attended the same Melbourne function as a hotel worker at the Holiday Inn.
Victoria s health authorities will not rule out extending the state s snap five-day Covid lockdown as new exposure sites are revealed and new details emerge about the Coburg dinner virus spread.
Sunday s two new local coronavirus cases - a toddler and an unrelated hotel quarantine worker - were linked to the Holiday Inn cluster, which has now reached 16 cases.
Both had also attended a private dinner on Sydney Road, Coburg, on February 6.
Melbourne s popular Queen Victoria Market fruit and vegetable section has been named as a new exposure spot on Thursday February 11 from 8.25am to 10.10am along with the women s toilets in section 2.
Property Council of Australia Victorian executive director Danni Hunter said the financial costs would be felt for some time.
âThe cost of this circuit-breaker lockdown is devastating and will set Victoria back months in our economic recovery,â she said. âIt will be vital on the other side that the Victorian government boosts all efforts even further to reactivate Melbourne and ensure this is merely a small blip in our sustained economic recovery.â
Chinatown precinct spokesman Christopher Ng said the Lunar New Year weekend was the busiest time of year for local businesses, with lion dances and food stalls bringing hundreds of people to the streets.
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Victoriaâs public health team was stymied for several days in identifying a high-risk exposure site that a hotel quarantine worker with coronavirus visited, because she had initially returned an âexceptionally rareâ false-negative result.
Authorities are confident they have ring-fenced a growing COVID-19 cluster linked to a private function at the Coburg site on February 6, after an additional two people who attended the event tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday.
The venue (centre) in Sydney Road, Coburg, that has been listed as a COVID-19 exposure site.
Credit:Ashleigh McMillan
On Sunday evening, the government also released a new list of potential virus exposure sites on the morning of Thursday, February 11, including three tram routes and the Queen Victoria Market. It asked anyone present during the hours nominated to get tested and isolate.
An infectious diseases expert says the significant problem that led to the latest Victorian coronavirus outbreak was poor infection control, and not the more-contagious British variant blamed by the state government.