Tate Papworth
Keilor Downs, Albanvale, and Sunshine West have been identified as COVID-19 hotspot suburbs.
On Thursday morning Premier Daniel Andrews revealed a list of 10 heavily impacted suburbs across Victoria, which includes the three in Brimbank.
In a bid to get on top of the virus, more than 800 health workers will go door-to-door to test residents in those suburbs.
The government aims to conduct 10,000 tests a day across the suburbs, with a major focus on Keilor Downs.
Mr Andrews said he hoped to test 50 per cent of people living in those suburbs over the next three days and urged all residents to agree to be tested if a health worker knocks on their door.
“I expect that if people are visited and they’re asked to participate in an unprecedented suburban testing blitz, I would expect that most people’s answer will be “yes”, and we will look to get as many tests as we possibly can from those communities,” he said.
“Rather than waiting for an unsustainable number of community transmissions to become known, we are going to go out and literally door-to-door we are bringing the public health and coronavirus response to your doorstep, if you are in these worst-affected suburbs.”
He cautioned that the number of tests being taken out would bring about a spike in numbers.
“We will see numbers going up in the coming days, but that will be a measure of the success of this strategy,” Mr Andrews said.
“This is no less serious than a bushfire … just like we sent air bombers and firefighters earlier this year … this is a public health bushfire.”
The unprecendented move comes as the state recorded 33 new cases over the past 24 hours.
Chief medical officer Brett Sutton said the Keilor Downs family outbreak had grown by two, taking the total to 19, while a separate outbreak relating to another Brimbank family had also grown by two to five.
