Victoria State of Australia reports worst day of Covid-19 pandemic

Victoria, which is Australia’s second-most populous state, has reported its deadliest day of the COVID-19 outbreak on Sunday, with 17 people dying.

The Australian police also during the day thwarted a planned anti-mask rally in the capital of Melbourne.

Victoria, which is presently at the centre of a second wave of infections in Australia, has reported a total of 394 cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, compared with a daily average of 400-500 over the past week. The new deaths bring the state’s total to 210.

The infections in the state, are concentrated in Melbourne, which accounts for a lion’s share of the national tally of more than 21,000 and 295 deaths.

Victoria has imposed a night curfew, tightened restrictions on people’s daily movements and ordered large parts of the economy to close, this is all in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

According to Victoria Premier, Daniel Andrews, those measures have helped, although the situation remains challenging, as cases with unknown sources of infection continue to increase.

In what has been described as “mystery” cases, the state reported 174 of such in the past 24 hours, up from 130 on Saturday and bringing the total to 2,758.

“Even large numbers in known contained outbreaks are, to a certain extent, less significant than the smaller number of cases where we simply can’t find the circumstance or point of origin,” Andrews told reporters.

“They’re the ones that are incredibly challenging from a containment point of view.”

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Victoria’s coronavirus reproduction rate is around 1, meaning each infected person is passing the virus on to at least one other person. “We have to drive that down, so that every third or fourth person who has it is infecting someone else. That’s where we’ll see the numbers halve and halve again and become more manageable,” Andrews said. “That will essentially take time.”