A risk and a reason for optimism: An epidemiologist’s assessment of Victoria’s COVID situation

Victorians were last night plunged into the state’s sixth lockdown, and the state yesterday recorded six local COVID-19 cases.

All the new cases were infectious in the community.

Inaugural chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, Professor Catherine Bennett, says there’s a risk that further cases have been infectious in the community.

“Because the cases yesterday just came out of the blue, the risk is the people around who are also cases will have, likewise, been infectious before they were found,” she told Heidi Murphy, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

“There’s always a chance that you miss a case or two, and or the exposure sites linked to those people — that’s the risk. If it goes back a few weeks there could be quite a few cases in between.”

But Professor Bennett says there’s also a reason to be optimistic about how this outbreak will play out.

“We’ve been under strict restrictions even after coming out of lockdown a week ago, so that does minimise the number of contacts people have,” she said.

Professor Bennett says it’ll be a “few days” before health authorities know the true scale of the current outbreak.

Press PLAY below to hear Professor Bennett’s outlook on the current COVID situation