Four babies among new coronavirus cases in Australia
So sad.
By Elizabeth Daoud
March 31 2020
Four infants are among the new confirmed cases of coronavirus in Victoria.
A one-year-old child and three babies under the age of one have been diagnosed with COVID-19, as the state’s total tally of cases reaches 917.
Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos confirmed there were 96 new cases in the state on Tuesday.
In total, five young children have now been diagnosed with the virus in Victoria.
Of the four new cases in children, one was acquired overseas. The other three are being investigated.
Mikakos said the cases are not linked and are not part of a cluster.
None of the children is in hospital. They are recovering in isolation at home with their parents and carers.
Of the total number of cases in the state, Mikakos says 291 have recovered but 29 remain in hospital, with four in intensive care.
Natural fluctuations
The number of new cases in Victoria increased almost from 52 on Monday to 96 on Tuesday.
Victoria’s Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton said that could be put down to a number of reasons, including an increase in tests.
“As much as anything, it’s just the natural fluctuations day to day, and it might relate to the particular volumes of people returning home from international travel that also goes up and down from day to day,” Sutton.
“We’ve had different announcements on travel restrictions and quarantine arrangements that might’ve prompted people to come home a little earlier last week that means that we’ve had a boost of cases that have developed symptoms over the last couple of days.”
No room for complacency
Sutton added he wouldn’t want to see further increases of cases day to day and said he hoped the public were not becoming complacent when it came to social distancing measures.
“We have to be mindful of the fact that we can’t take our foot off the brake in terms of physical distancing because that will be the only real mechanism for managing community transmission,” Sutton said
Of the cases in Victoria, 32 are believed to have been the result of community transmission.
Originally published on 7News.