MELBOURNE:
The Australian government is set to deploy more than 1,000 soldiers in the state of Victoria to assist in containing a fres COVID-19 outbreak in the second most populated state of the country, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said on Thursday.
The Victoria government requested military support on Wednesday night after recording 13 to 25 novel coronavirus cases daily in the last week along with the announcement of the first COVID-19 death in the country in more than a month, reports Efe news. Majority of these cases were community transmission.
Some 850 Australian Defense Force (ADF) personnel will provide monitoring support to hotel quarantine, where the travellers that land in the country are required to be in mandatory quarantine for a period of 14 days, while other 200 will provide logistical and medical support in initiatives to carry out COVID-19 tests, Reynolds said in a statement released.
In an interview to Australia”s Nine News, Reynolds said that the personnel will begin mobilization on Thursday and the deployment is expected to begin on Friday in Melbourne. The capital of Victoria has six hotspot areas at present.
“The COVID-19 pandemic requires a proactive national response and Defence is well postured to provide scalable support to states and territories,” the Minister said in the statement. Amid the crisis due to community transmission, the authorities of the state intend to carry out a large number of tests along with tracing the COVID-19 cases in the immigrant localities where the major number of infections have been reported.
During the outbreak, some 30 security personnel who were guarding the several hotels of Melbourne contracted the infection and later infected their families. Health Minister Greg Hunt said that the quarantine system in the hotels of Victoria could be improved.
The novel coronavirus cases in the country has affected 7,500 people so far and has claimed 104 lives. Majority of these cases have been reported in New South Wales region.
