Health authorities are yet to definitively link two new locally acquired coronavirus cases to its latest outbreak.
The state on Saturday recorded five new local COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to midnight, bringing the size of the state’s current outbreak to 70.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton told reporters on Saturday that while three of five of the cases had effectively been in quarantine for their entire infectious period - two others had been in the community.
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“The two new cases that have not been identified as primary close contacts previously, do have that, again, link to Craigieburn (Central) Shopping Centre and Epping Plaza Shopping Centre,” he said.
He said they were “frequent attendees at both of those sites”. However, they do not yet have a “definitive crossover time with known cases”.
Sutton said at least one of the cases had been prompted to get tested after seeing authorities raise their concerns about these sites.
“There will be some exposure sites for these individuals because they were not quarantining already,” he added.
‘A real priority’
COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said the first individual had attended a number of exposure sites, including Craigieburn Shopping Centre, but authorities were yet to formally connect the individual to the outbreak.
He said the case’s partner is an employee of a large construction site in the CBD, and 170 workplace contacts were now in lockdown.
“Those two cases are a real priority to us over the next few days, to establish any other downstream infections that may have occurred,” he said on Saturday.
Seven cases have now been linked to Craigieburn Central Shopping Centre
“That is a leading line of our investigation. We are working closely to get his exact movements with other positive cases, but that is the lead hypothesis at this point in time,” Weimar said.
“We will obviously confirm that over the next day or two.”