New Suburban Response Units are to be set up to give rapid local insights and report on community connections as Victoria takes the first steps to COVID Normal.
Announced by the Premier, Daniel Andrews and Minister for Health, Jenny Mikakos the Units will be positioned across metropolitan Melbourne to ensure responses can be quickly established for future outbreaks.
“The new suburban public health teams will mirror the successful program already established in Victoria’s regional centres and will provide a tailored local response to everything from contact tracing, to outbreak management,” Mr Andrews and Ms Mikakos said.
“Consultation is set to begin with health services and Local Government to determine the best location to set up a unit in each area, and to develop a model that suits the needs of each of the communities,” they said.
“This program will mean new cases are responded to with speed and agility, informed by the local knowledge of how and where the virus is likely to spread in local communities, which will be reported back centrally.”
The Ministers said the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) would begin publishing weekly contact tracing performance reports online and keep Victorians up to date on 14 day rolling case averages.
They said the Government was also working to deliver a new case and contact management system.
“It will cover the whole program of contact tracing – from positive result coming in, the interviews, follow-up phone calls and coordination of Operation Vestige to the clearance of cases and contacts to be managed all within the one system,” they said.
Mr Andrews and Ms Mikakos said the system would be set up in parallel to the current process to ensure there was no dip in performance as improvements were made.
