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'Some of those people will die:' Covid cases surge in Australian state

Author: Newstalk ZB / news.com.au,
Publish Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020, 3:05PM

The Australian state of Victoria now has 415 active cases of Covid-19 after 77 cases were recorded overnight. Most are from Melbourne's "hot zones".

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said that of the 77 new cases, 13 are linked to outbreaks, 37 were detected through routine testing and 27 are still under investigation.

He said there are now 332 total cases in Victoria with an unknown source.

"That's an increase of 31 since yesterday," he said.

The 31 new cases without a known source are the most for a single day in Victoria since the pandemic began.

"Perhaps not unexpectedly, there are now 20 patients hospitalised, an increase of five since yesterday, including four in intensive care," Professor Sutton said.

An elderly woman is tested at a pop-up clinic during a Covid-19 testing blitz in the suburb of Broadmeadows on June 28. Photo / Getty Images

It comes as the NT recorded its first case since April when a man who visited Melbourne carried the virus to Darwin.

Sutton told reporters this morning that Victorians still "don't get it" despite cases climbing in Victoria again today and deaths rising overseas.

"I also feel that some people don't get it," Victoria's Chief Health Officer said.

"That it's being overblown, that 415 cases in population of metro Melbourne and 4.5 million is tiny. I can only return people to the notion that this entire pandemic that's now infecting 200,000 people a day globally started with one person and has killed more than 500,000 people having gone through maybe a quarter of the pandemic globally.

"This will be a pandemic that has the potential to kill five or 10 or more million people worldwide and so we can't just look at where we're at today because we don't want to go to a situation where this increases as it's increasing across the world."

Sutton was asked this morning if he thinks Victorians will die during the current spread of infections.

"I'm afraid that that's absolutely a possibility when you've got significant transmission, when you've got 70-odd cases every day," he told reporters.

"There is absolutely an expectation that some of those people will die. That's why it's incumbent on all of us to be minimising our interactions with others."