Coronavirus Australia live news: Swamped testing sites turn away thousands

COVID-19 testing sites across Melbourne closed within an hour of opening on Sunday, swamped by thousands of Victorians requiring tests after returning from NSW and further stressed by health staff taking holiday leave.

Despite the temporary closures and lack of staff, Victorian health authorities processed more tests than their NSW colleagues on Saturday — 22,477 samples compared to 18,923 — although that remains far short of the more than 40,000 daily tests undertaken at the height of the second coronavirus wave.

By 9.30am on Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services listed drive-through sites in Darebin, Keysborough and West Footscray as “over capacity, no further accepted”. Cars were also turned away from the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre in Albert Park, which was listed as a three-hour wait, and sites in Chadstone, St Albans and Broadmeadows had waiting times of more than two hours.But Jeroen Weimar, who is co-ordinating Victoria’s COVID-19 response, defended the long waiting times for testing.

“There was a 35 per cent uplift in the total number of tests delivered in the south and southeastern suburbs yesterday compared to the day before so we are getting the numbers through,” he said. “Our frontline staff have been working phenomenally hard for that entire period and we have seen a significant number of people rightly take some well-*deserved leave as we see across the wider sector, so we have had to gear up and mobilise,” he said.

“The choice we faced before Christmas was, do you hold people over and not let them go on leave after absolutely flogging themselves for nine months (or) do you say, ‘no, you have to stand around the testing stations on the off chance’ … we took a view that we needed to have the right balance of resources.”

The DHHS has identified a number of new exposure sites, with the number of infections in the state reaching 50.

New locations on Sunday included Brighton Beach on December 29 between midday and 3pm, Angus and Cootes Jeweller at Southland Shopping Centre on December 28 between 2.30pm and 2.50pm and the Costco Moorabbin on December 30 between 4pm and 5.50pm.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said there would not be any border restriction on Melbourne or Victoria “at this stage”. “But we’re keeping a very, very close eye on that,” she said on Sunday, after Victoria reported three new local cases.

Another Melbourne location, Grape & Grain in Moorabbin, which had yet to appear in DHHS warnings, said it would remain closed after staff tested positive.

The DHHS plans to boost testing capacity by extending hours, recalling staff, bringing on board agency staff and opening more pop-up and drive-through sites.

The Victorian branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation posted a message on Facebook seeking “urgent support” from nurses and midwives to work in testing sites across the state on behalf of Torrens Health and the health department: “Shift lengths will vary from between six and 10 hours; travel and meal allowances are available in some circumstances.”

“I think 60,000 people made the right decision … to come back; I am confident the vast majority will follow through and say, right, I need to make sure I get tested because I don’t want to put myself at risk,” Mr Weimar said.

There were 32000+ tests in vic on sunday,in reality how many do you think they should be able to do & how many testers the govt should have on standby in case there is an outbreak?
I am not being smart but really curious as to how they should do it in your opinion.
I dont know if you agree with the small time frame given re the border closing but for the amount of people really angry at how quick it happened there are just as many slamming the govt for not closing it as soon as the sydney outbreak happened.
Im not suggesting the vic govt is perfect by any means but to me i believe they are doing a fairly good job right now however i may be just plain silly for doing so!

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