Vic records one new case overnight

The new locally acquired case is a primary close contact who has been quarantining throughout their infectious period, health authorities said on Sunday.

It’s the second day in a row in which the state has acquired only one new local case.

There were no new cases acquired overseas.

There were 17,102 test results received and 14,390 vaccine doses were administered, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services said.

It comes after Victoria’s Covid Commander Jeroen Weimer on Saturday urged Victorians to get tested, saying there are “certainly” more cases in the community.

Mr Weimer also said he was concerned to see testing numbers were dropping, with only 15,110 tests on Saturday compared to the more than 40,000 when the state’s fourth lockdown began.

The single local case recorded in Victoria on Saturday was a man from the City of Melbourne with a young family who had mostly been at home performing care roles, Mr Weimer said.

He is believed to be connected to the Kappa strain outbreak rather than the more contagious Delta.

“My personal view is that there are certainly more cases out there,” Mr Weimer told reporters on Saturday.

“I think we’re talking very small numbers — but we need to track them down because as we have seen, if we let them linger and build, we have seen how infectious this Kappa variant can be in certain settings.”

He also encouraged Victorians to call out friends, family and acquaintances showing symptoms such as a sniffle who weren’t getting tested.

“If you’ve got a colleague complaining of a sore throat, make sure they get tested and isolate at home,” he said.

Saturday’s new case followed zero cases recorded on Friday.

In total there are now 68 active cases in Victoria.

Zero cases were recorded in Queensland and NSW on Saturday, despite panic over a Melbourne couple who fled lockdown and travelled to the Sunshine Coast via country towns in NSW.