As it happened: Victoria records new two local COVID cases as lockdown continues; Hunt ongoing for origins of Melbourne Delta variant outbreak; police stop travel to regions

Victoria has recorded two new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours and six new cases in hotel quarantine, taking the number of active infections in the state to 85.

But after the release of the confirmed figures, Arcare in Maidstone – the site of the first aged care cases in the latest outbreak – released a statement saying that a resident and a nurse had both contracted COVID-19 and staff who worked on Saturday had been instructed to isolate.

Victorian tourism operators will receive extra support from the state government as Melbourne’s lockdown continues.

“One is a 79-year-old resident who lives in close proximity to the first two residents diagnosed. The second is an agency Registered Nurse (RN) who last worked at the residence yesterday,” Arcare chief executive Colin Singh said.

“The resident, who has had both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, is asymptomatic but will be transferred to hospital for public health reasons.”

Click here to read the story.

Thanks so much for joining us, that’s all we have for you for today.

We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning with the live blog sharing all the latest news on Victoria’s coronavirus outbreak.

For now, let’s look back at the top stories of the day:

• Victoria officially recorded two new locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Sunday and six new cases in hotel quarantine. Active cases now stand at 85.
• Two more cases - which will appear in tomorrow’s COVID figures - were announced at the Arcare aged care facility in Maidstone. A 79-year-old resident and an asymptomatic nurse have now tested positive.
• The state government announced another 80,000 regional travel vouchers on Sunday, to the value of $200. No release date has been set for the new tranche of vouchers.
• Small business owners who have demanded customers wear face masks and sign in with QR codes are being targeted by anti-vaxxers and anti-lockdown activists.
• Disability advocates are pleading for specialist schools in Melbourne to be reopened, saying remote learning is “having devastating consequences” for many students and their carers.

• Gold Coast chairman Tony Cochrane says the Victorian government’s “hopeless” management of COVID-19 means it is “almost probable” the grand final will have to be played away from the MCG for the second year in a row.

• COVID-19 viral fragments have been identified in a number of suburbs in north-west Melbourne, prompting concern from health authorities. Residents of and recent visitors to the suburbs of Aberfeldie, Essendon, Essendon West, Flemington, Footscray, Kensington, Maribyrnong, Moonee Ponds, Parkville and Travancore are being urged to monitor for symptoms of the virus and get tested if any symptoms develop.

Have a wonderful rest of your evening.

A Quiet Place II just came out in the cinemas. It’s a horror movie about Earth getting invaded by gruesome-looking aliens with faces that open up like an incontinent flappy sphincter – or if that’s too gross, like one of those origami kiddies’ games where you lift up the paper-folds to find out who you secretly love. It all depends on how you look at things. Personally, I’m for the sphincter.

The unique thing about these aliens is, they have really bad eyesight but amazing hearing: I believe they’re based on the same biology as my mother, who is extremely shortsighted but her hearing is super-powerful – all through my childhood, any time I got up at night for a pee, I’d come back to my room and my bed was made.

So because these aliens have mother-level hearing, humans have to stay completely silent if they want to survive – that’s why the entire movie only has a few lines of dialogue, with most of the script probably being the written description: “Close up on people’s feet tiptoeing. More tiptoeing. Faster tiptoeing!!”

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The number of vaccine doses administered in Australia has passed five million, the latest health department data shows.

A total of 88,925 doses were carried out yesterday, almost half of them (42,365) in Victoria.

Over the past week, 803,453 vaccine doses have been administered nationwide.

You can see how vaccination progress is tracking in your state/territory in the interactive table below:

Geelong’s players and staff will have to decide whether to put their entire families into home lockdown or quarantine in hotels without them before Thursday night’s trip to Adelaide to face the Power.

From 5pm on Monday, Cats players and staff will have just one reason to leave home – to go to GMHBA Stadium for training – and the lockdown will also apply to any family members living under the same roof.

But like Collingwood, the AFL would give Geelong’s travelling party the option to spend the week in hotels if the lockdown was expected to unfairly burden family members, such as school-aged children, should the South Australian government require the Cats to quarantine from Monday night.

Read the full story here.