Australia sees deadliest day of coronavirus pandemic

Australia recorded 10 coronavirus deaths Sunday in the state of Victoria, the nation’s deadliest day of the pandemic thus far.

Victoria premier Daniel Andrews said 459 new cases have been diagnosed since Saturday and acknowledged the virus’ spread among health care workers, saying 381 workers are currently active cases, according to The Guardian.

“That is a significant challenge, given, whilst we have overall capacity and we’ve worked very hard all throughout the year to grow the number of people that can be available for our fight against this virus in a clinical sense, whenever we have clinical staff and other critical health workers away, furloughed because they are a close contact or in fact as an active case, that does put some additional pressure on our system,” Andrews said.

Andrews added that thousands of current and retired midwives and nurses are being trained for deployment throughout the nation’s health system.

The metropolitan Melbourne area has imposed a six-week lockdown, which the premier did not rule out extending,  due to the numbers, according to the newspaper.

“I will say is these things change rapidly, but these numbers are far too high,” Andrews added, saying that while he was relieved cases were not increasing exponentially, “we’ve got to drive these numbers down,” calling for Victoria residents to seek testing and wear masks in public.

“It’s not too much to ask,” he said. “Ten families are currently planning funerals. And the youngest among them, they have lost someone in their 40s. It can’t get any more serious than that. Please wear a mask. Everyone. And if you don’t, you will get fined. And that’s exactly as it should be.”

Australia has seen just under 15,000 cases of the virus and 165 total deaths.