As Victoria's second wave of coronavirus worsens, case numbers in aged care homes are growing at an alarming rate.
In just a few days, infections at aged care homes reached about 80.
On Tuesday, 28 cases were confirmed to be linked to the Menarock Life Aged Care Facility in Essendon, making it the biggest aged care outbreak to date, while 13 have been linked to the Glendale Aged Care Facility in Werribee.
A third aged care home, Estia Health in Ardeer, has also seen a jump in cases, with 13 residents confirmed to have the virus on Monday.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton described the growing aged care clusters as a challenging situation.
"Often it's a single staff member or a few staff members, but there are a few significant outbreaks with a number of residents," Prof Sutton said on Tuesday.
Several residents of the Menarock Aged Care facility have been taken to hospital for treatment but Prof Sutton said that was not necessary for all aged care residents who contracted the virus.
Government advice has been for staff at aged care facilities to wear masks and movement between residences limited, but Prof. Sutton said if cases continued to rise guidelines could be reviewed.
"They should really minimise movement of staff between facilities which has always been part and parcel of the aged care workforce, but they really need to consider minimising that to the fullest extent possible, and also map where the workforce are," he said.
"They're some of the things that we would review at the end of the week if there is ongoing transmission in some of these settings."
The Royal Melbourne hospital has set up a specialist COVID-19 ward for elderly patients from aged care homes.
Victoria recorded 270 more cases on Tuesday and Prof Sutton said with increasing virus numbers, more hospitalisations were inevitable across all age groups.
MENAROCK AGED CARE DAILY TOTALS:
Sunday July 12: 11 cases
Monday July 13: 26 cases
Tuesday July 14: 28 cases
GLENDALE AGED CARE DAILY TOTALS:
Sunday July 12: 12 cases
Monday July 13: 13 cases
Tuesday July 14: 13 cases
SOURCE: Victorian Government
Australian Associated Press
