For the tenth day in a row, Victoria has reported no new cases of coronavirus and no deaths, with one possible new infection found to be a viral shedding case.
Two of those are cases of “mystery” of unclear causes of infection, and two persons remain in hospital but are not in intensive care.
Jeroen Weimar, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) research commander, said one person who had quarantined in Western Australia had shown slight signs of the virus in a test before travelling to Victoria, but was ruled not an active event.
“People can continue to shed the virus in very low levels subsequent to the 14-day [isolation] period,” Mr Weimar said.
“In some individual cases that can take a number of weeks.
“Those are not judged to be infectious – they present no risk to the wider community, there’s no risk of onward transmission, but they’re still shedding traces of the virus.”
On Sunday, 10,653 COVID tests were carried out by the health authorities.
More than 235,000 experiments have been carried out over the past two weeks, Mr. Weimar said, and extensive research will continue for several months before a vaccine is widely available.
He said it will require the maintenance of at least 200 regional testing sites.
“I still have the view that there is still likely to be some traces of coronavirus out there in our community somewhere, that’s why this really consistent and very diverse testing program is really such an important part of what we’re doing,” he said.