'Still out there': The statistic concerning Australian health authorities
Health officials are warning the coronavirus pandemic is far from over as five cases without a source of infection were confirmed in the past 24 hours.
By Tuesday, Australia had 732 cases from community transmission where the source could not be traced, accounting for 10.3 per cent of all cases.
And while the majority of those cases have since recovered and imported cases reach low daily numbers, the percentage of cases of unknown sources that have been acquired within the community has risen by 0.2 per cent in the past five days.
And in Melbourne, two staff members at an aged care home in Camberwell have tested positive to COVID-19 a week after a resident was diagnosed with the virus.
Yet authorities are stumped as to how they’ve contracted the virus as they weren’t identified as close contacts of the resident.
Mystery over virus source after Queensland man dies
On Wednesday, the town of Blackwater near Rockhampton in Queensland was on high-alert after a man who was found dead at his home tested positive for the virus at the post-mortem.
He is believed to have been showing symptoms for several weeks and his case was the first in the town. Authorities do not believe the 30-year-old had travelled outside Blackwater since February.
While state and federal governments have routinely reminded the public cases will go up as restrictions are eased, they have also reassured ramped-up testing alongside ramped-up contact tracing and outbreak response would allow governments to get on top of new cases and significantly reduce the threat posed to the community.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd confirmed on Wednesday one third, five of 15 cases, in the past previous 24 hours currently had no confirmed source.
Appearing on The Today show on Wednesday, Professor Kidd said the threat of community transmission, particularly through asymptomatic carriers, was as prevalent as ever.
“What it shows to us is that COVID-19 is still out there in the community and what we know is that
there are some people who have very mild symptoms or often very few symptoms at all,” he said.
“So it just reinforces the importance that if anyone has any symptoms of a respiratory tract infection, no matter how mild, you stay at home and you arrange to get tested because it could be COVID-19.”
Authorities have repeatedly called for increased testing to identify and subsequently stifle community transmission.
While in recent weeks Victoria and NSW have both exceeded 10,000 tests per day, Monday’s number of tests in NSW fell to 4,621, more than 3,000 tests short of Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s daily target of 8,000.
Dr Norman Swan, the ABC’s medical expert who has spearheaded the network’s coronavirus coverage, warned a drop off of testing due to “letting our guard down”, the nation could be hit by a daunting third wave of infection.
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