Everyone who worked at a busy shopping centre west of Melbourne over four days will now have to go into quarantine for two weeks.
Concern has mounted over CS Square shopping centre in Caroline Springs,as more than half of Victoria’s COVID cases on Tuesday were linked to the centre.
said “we’ve now seen 25 cases associated with the Caroline Springs Square shopping centre,across a number of different … retail units,and people”.
Over the past few days,many of the centre’s shops have been identified as “tier 1″ sites,meaning anyone who attended them during specified timeframes has to get tested and quarantine for 14 days,regardless of the result.
The entire shopping centre was declared a “tier 2” site on Monday for a whole 10-day period,meaning anyone who visited it during that timeframe has to get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result.
It was listed as tier 2 for an additional day on Tuesday evening,but authorities took things a step further,declaring all staff at the centre tier 1 over a four-day period,from Monday,August 2 to Thursday,August 5,inclusive.
Authorities identified 36 new COVID exposure sites in Victoria on Tuesday,including two tier-1 locations. They were the four exposures for staff at the Caroline Springs shopping centre and the gaming lounge at the Taylors Lakes Hotel in Melton.
The gaming lounge was declared an exposure site on Sunday,August 1 between 5.15pm and 8.30pm. Before Tuesday evening,the whole of the hotel was also listed as tier 2.
Mr Weimar said on Tuesday that 400 tests were done at the pop-up site in Caroline Springs,but that number needed to be higher.
“I would really urge,I need those numbers to increase. We need to see more people in the Caroline Springs area coming forward for testing. It’s a busy,important shopping centre,” he said.