Health chief says today ‘should be the peak’ of Victoria’s COVID-19 outbreak

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton says modelling shows today “should be the peak” of Victoria’s coronavirus outbreak, but that’s not guaranteed.

While the effective reproduction rate suggests today is the peak, Professor Sutton said significant aged care outbreaks complicate the situation.

There are currently 683 active cases in aged care.

“It’s encouraging to see that effective reproduction number come to one or just below one, but we have to keep at it every day,” Professor Sutton said.

“I’m not going to sit back and say today is the peak, we have to see what happens in coming days.

“At the moment I’m more concerned that we’ll probably see a rise in numbers because the outbreaks are really volatile. In aged care settings the numbers can increase very significantly in a very short time, even as community transmission might be coming down.”

Professor Sutton admitted there have been contact tracing “bottlenecks” in recent weeks.

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