Brett Sutton says contact detectors were overwhelmed after daily cases hit 200 during Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19

It was also heard on Monday that about half of the more than 20,000 people infected with the coronavirus in Victoria were born outside Australia.

“We have learned that we need to work much more closely with community leaders,” said Jeroen Weimar, the state’s head of coronavirus testing.

“We recognize that they can influence, direct and support people who are facing a very difficult situation because COVID may not only be a health problem for them, but it could also have implications for their addiction … for their employment, income. base and supply all other needs they have. “

Professor Wallace said “deep involvement and trust in the community” is critical to effective contact tracing.

“It doesn’t matter how good your system and interviewers are, unless you have the trust and commitment of the community the processes won’t work,” he said.

Health chief Brett Sutton told the investigation that the original contact tracking system began to crumble as new coronavirus cases hit 200 cases per day during the second wave.

“When you get to hundreds of cases, at that kind of level of 200 or more cases a day, it really starts to test your ability to get all that timely close contact information within that critical time frame,” the said. Professor Sutton.

“When you get to very, very high numbers, the ability to exceed them is reduced.”

Professor Sutton also told the inquiry that the state experienced a rapid increase in community broadcasting in June. He attributed this spike largely to positive cases to an epidemic seeded in the hotel’s quarantine program.

“The driving force was what appears epidemiologically … a super-diffusion event that has appeared in large numbers of families across very large geographic areas,” he said.

Professor Sutton said about a third of infected people were responsible for most of the spread of the virus.

‘Even with the best contact tracking in the world, we were faced with people who had up to 20 close contacts each, in the workplace or at home or both,’ said Professor Sutton.

As daily cases soared to over 700 in Victoria, each single case had about 10 close contacts to follow each day with public health officials hampered by a paper-based system unable to keep up with the soaring infections.

“The trials that were underway in every other state and territory of the country could not cope with these new numbers every day,” Professor Wallace told the investigation.

Professor Wallace also defended the decision to decline an offer from technology agency Salesforce to digitize the contact-tracking system in March, telling the investigation that it was not the right time to change IT systems as officials at the public health were heavily focused on trying to manage the increasing case numbers. with an immediate response to emergencies.

“It’s not a case of rejection per se,” he told the investigation.

In August, the Victorian Health Department quietly dismantled its paper-based COVID-19 notification system, replacing it with an electronic system that allows doctors to quickly submit positive test results. The move to a digital contact tracking system, built by US technology company Salesforce, will be completed within the next month.

On Monday, Premier Daniel Andrews suggested that some workers from Victoria’s revamped hotel quarantine program may be physically living on site.

The program, which was the subject of immense scrutiny during a recent independent investigation, is expected to resume on 7 December when international arrivals can fly back to Melbourne.

Both the current South Australian epidemic and the second wave of Victoria have resulted from the hotel quarantine.

Asked how to move hotel quarantine facilities outside major capitals to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading to the wider population, the premier said having staff housed in hotels could be “a feature of the system. recovery “.

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“I think living locally is not just a function of being in the suburbs or in the Victoria region,” Andrews said.

“Not necessarily all staff members, but some. Particularly those who are … the highest risk group if you will, the ones who have the most frequent contact.

The premier defined the staff who would live on the spot “living in a bubble”.

“We are working on all of these problems,” he said. “We are well under way, we are not yet ready to make a full announcement on what it will be like, but we have a modest start.”

The scheme will restart in two weeks and will be able to accommodate 160 returning Australians per day.

Mr. Andrews had previously said that staff in the relaunched hotel quarantine system would be hired solely for their own jobs in the program and contact traced in advance.

There is still an active case in Victoria. Health Minister Martin Foley said the case is an immunocompromised person who remains hospitalized with a long-term case of COVID-19.