Overview
Victoria is back in lockdown, case numbers have been rising again and the exposure sites list is growing. All of this feels familiar, obviously, but it's the reality again at the moment. So, as well as staying at home, making friends with your couch and watching Premier Daniel Andrews' daily press conferences, checking out the frequently updated list of venues visited by folks who've since tested positive to COVID-19 is back on your agenda.
Maintained by the Victorian Department of Health, that register of places has been growing over the past few days, and now sits at 84 venues as at the morning of Friday, August 6. And, as keeps happening with successive outbreaks, a few of the big venues on the list have been there before.
If you visited Melbourne Airport or Highpoint Shopping Centre this week, monitoring for symptoms — or getting tested and spending a stint in self-isolation afterwards — might be in your future. Both venues have been named as exposure sites, and not for the first time.
At Melbourne Airport, if you were at Terminal 3 from 8.35–11.05am on Monday, August 2, you were at a Tier 3 site. That requires watching out for any signs of COVID-19 and then getting tested. However, if you then flew on to Launceston with Virgin that morning, you're classed in Tier 1, which means you'll need to get tested immediately and then self-isolate for 14 days.
At Highpoint Shopping Centre, a number of different areas are covered — some as Tier 1 sites, and some as Tier 2. In the first category, if you went to Lowes from 12–1pm or Bad Workwear from 12.30–1.30pm on Saturday, July 31, you'll need to get tested ASAP and then self-quarantine for a fortnight. If you were on level two of the centre at all between 12–1.30pm that same day, or at the level three food court from 12.30–2pm, you'll also need to get tested urgently, and then self-isolate until you receive a negative result.
Other notable venues that've newly joined the list include Coles at Yarraville, Aldi at Altona North and West Footscray and Kmart Footscray. As always, Melburnians can keep an eye on the register of exposure sites at the Department of Health website — it will keep being updated if and when more venues are identified.
For those looking to get tested, you can find a list of testing sites including regularly updated waiting times also on the Department of Health website.
And, has remained the case throughout the pandemic, Melburnians should be looking out for coughs, fever, sore or scratchy throat, shortness of breath, or loss of smell or taste, symptoms-wise.
For further details on the latest exposure sites and updated public health advice, see the Department of Health website.
Top image: Medelam via Wikimedia Commons.
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