Coronavirus Australia: Victoria records no new COVID cases for first time since lockdown

Victoria has reported no new cases of COVID-19 – its first clean sheet since the state’s lockdown-inducing Delta outbreak.

The health department confirmed no new local or overseas acquired cases had been detected in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning.

It’s the first day since July 12 that the state has not posted a new local case of coronavirus.

Active cases continue to fall, dropping from 124 to 99.

More than 30,000 test results were received over the past 24 hours, while about 17,600 vaccine doses were administered at state-run sites.

It comes after it was revealed none of the 10 people currently hospitalised in Victoria were fully vaccinated.

Statistics, obtained by AAP, show two of those cases were partially vaccinated before their admission to hospital.

Five patients were eligible but had not received their first dose, two were ineligible as they were under 40 years, and one was an unvaccinated returned traveller in hotel quarantine.

Of the two partially vaccinated people, one was in their 50s and the other 70 years and over.

VICTORIAN-NSW BORDER BUBBLE TIGHTENED

Meanwhile, the Victorian-NSW border bubble tightened for residents from 11.59pm on Tuesday, banning non-essential movement across state lines.

Border bubble residents are now only able to state-hop for six reasons including medical care, compassionate purposes, work, education, playing sport or getting vaccinated.

In another change taking effect in Victoria from Wednesday, group booking limits have been scrapped for hospitality venues, tours and gyms but density limits remain.

On the back of the state’s third day without a “wild” case, Chief Health Officer Sutton said authorities would consider removing a ban on home visits at the end of the current two-week restrictions on August 10.

“We’ll have a long tail to this outbreak,” he said on Tuesday.

“There might be a week or more of a trickle of cases and we need to make sure we can clear those remaining 3000 primary close contacts, and make sure no one has been out in the community during their potentially infectious period that might kick this off again.”

QLD BRACES FOR JUMP IN NEW COVID-19 CASES

Queensland is bracing for a another rise in COVID-19 cases as authorities trace contacts of a case in the far north and deep clean a unit block on the Sunshine Coast.

The west Brisbane Delta cluster has risen to at least 47 cases, after 16 new infections announced on Tuesday, and millions of residents in the state’s southeast in lockdown until at least Sunday.

A case has also emerged in a Cairns marine pilot who is believed to have picked up the virus in Brisbane with authorities trying to determine whether it is linked to the Delta outbreak.

An apartment block at Sippy Downs on the Sunshine Coast is in quarantine and being deep cleaned after a confirmed Delta case linked to the Brisbane cluster visited the property.

The Delta outbreak is centred on a number of schools in the city’s west with Brisbane Boys Grammar announcing that seven people linked to the school are infected with the Delta strain.

“BGS now has seven confirmed COVID cases – five students, one teacher and one parent,” BGS headmaster Anthony Micallef said in a statement on Tuesday night.

“This development does not change the government directives already in place, which have been previously communicated to you.”

It is unclear whether some of those seven cases are new or have been previously announced by authorities.

– With AAP

STATE-BY-STATE BREAKDOWN

NSW – TBA

VIC – zero new local cases

QLD – TBA

WA – TBA

SA – TBA

TAS – TBA

ACT – TBA

NT – TBA