Coronavirus update for Victoria 29 April 2022

There are 428 COVID-19 cases in hospital in Victoria – with 31 active cases in ICU, including 5 on a ventilator, and an additional 4 cleared cases in ICU.

6,198,701 vaccine doses have been administered by Victoria’s state-commissioned services, with 2,163 administered yesterday at state-run centres.

67.6 per cent of Victorians aged 18 and over have had 3 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. 94.5 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and over have had 2 doses.

11,083 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded yesterday. This includes 7,213 who tested positive on a Rapid Antigen Test and 3,870 who returned a positive result on a PCR test.

Sadly, the Department was notified of 7 deaths yesterday of people aged in their 50s, 70s and 80s. All of today’s reported deaths occurred in the past week, including 6 deaths that occurred in the past 2 days.

This brings the total number of deaths in Victoria since the pandemic began to 2,948.

There are 54,150 active cases in Victoria.

20,684 PCR tests were processed yesterday. The total number of PCR tests performed in Victoria since the pandemic began is 20,500,080.

Updates

BA.2.12.1 Omicron strain detected in wastewater

Victorian health authorities are monitoring the detection of the BA.2.12.1 Omicron strain in a southeast metropolitan Melbourne wastewater catchment.

Health authorities will prioritise the sequencing of PCR samples from COVID-19 cases in the wastewater catchment area to get a better understanding of the prevalence of the strain.

BA.2.12.1 is a sub-lineage of the BA.2 Omicron variant, which continues to be the dominant strain in Victoria. BA.2.12.1 has been detected in North America and Europe. Early evidence suggests it is more transmissible than BA.2 but does not cause more severe disease.

There have been no further wastewater detections of the BA.4 or BA.5 strain in Victoria since its detection this month from a single wastewater sample in the Tullamarine catchment.

/Public Release. View in full here.