Victoria has recorded 15 new coronavirus cases today and five further deaths from the virus. Melbourne’s 14-day average has dropped to 29.4.
Six new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in New South Wales, all of them among people in hotel quarantine. The state has recorded no new locally-transmitted cases for the second day in a row.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed in Victoria against two private security companies involved in the state’s hotel quarantine program.
No new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Queensland today, and the number of active cases in the state has dropped to five.
The number of coronavirus deaths in the United States has passed 200,000. Worldwide there have been more than 31 million COVID-19 cases and 966,000 deaths, Johns Hopkins University data shows.
– Two leading epidemiologists say other states can safely reopen their borders with regional Victoria while Melbourne remains locked down to prevent coronavirus spreading beyond the city.
The rolling 14-day case average has dropped to 1.1 in regional Victoria, with no new cases since a single infection was reported on September 17.
Deakin University epidemiology chair Catherine Bennett said the risk of a major outbreak was now “incredibly low” in regional Victoria.
