Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton says he “absolutely expect(s) more” cases to emerge given the Indian variant is supposedly even more virulent than the UK and original strains.
The entire state of Victoria will be plunged into a seven-day lockdown from midnight on Thursday after 11 more cases were identified taking the current cluster total to 26.
Professor Sutton said the reduction number for this variant was considerably higher than the UK-strain and means one infected individual would on average infect five people, in comparison to around three for the UK-variant.
“You don’t want this to move unmitigated by contact tracing, by the restrictions that limit the number of contacts you have,” he said.
The chief health officer said he didn’t believe the caseload would increase by the hundreds over the coming days as 10,000 close and primary contacts are tested.
“I don’t think we’ll see hundreds, but I absolutely expect more.”