I wish the consequences of a case leaking out were not so severe for everyone because part of me is fully expecting it.
Well hopefully that expectation will not become a reality.
However it is I think worth noting that Covid 19 control expertise, measures and resources are vastly different to what they were back in July.
Since Vic DHHS adopted the two ring containment method in October, plus with enhanced contact tracing as well as various community measures which have varied (mask wearing etc)
every new outbreak has been reduced to zero cases within a fortnight and mainly within a week, and also that no outbreak has grown out of control unlike at the start of the second wave in Victoria.
- Kilmore
- Shepparton
- Uniting Age Care - Preston
- Box Hill Hospital Cluster #2
- SE Community
- North-metro Regional Community (which was the several EPIC related clusters linked by proximity, not transmission in all cases)
- Avalon returned traveller (teenage girl = 0 local transmission)
- Black Rock
were all swiftly controlled.
With respect to hotel quarantine and isolation arrangements Vic DHHS probably now has the strictest protocols in Australia, some of which have now also been adopted in other jurisdictions.
In addition since HQ for international arrivals was resumed at significant level (though a small number of international arrivals with compassionate exemptions did still arrive during the second wave) all HQ workers have had daily testing. A practice now adopted in the other stats.
Vic also tests all arriving aircrew and any positive cases have to go into isolation. ie One of the three positive AO cases is in isolation at a health hotel which has higher standards of control.
Also in Vic any positive case is moved to a health hotel and not left in a quarantine hotel. As for example at the Grand Chancellor where positive cases were isolated in the same building as other returned travellers and where transmission resulted.
Plus other measures such as wastewater monitoring.
As the virus is highly transmissible and as humans do make errors or just deliberately choose to breach a protocol, or equipment may fail etc,
a new outbreak in Victoria is most likely inevitable sooner or later, whether that be from international sources (air or sea) or from interstate, but Vic is now in a much better position than it was to detect and control any such leakage, and to also minimise the possibly of such a leakage in the first place.