As at 8pm, Saturday, 21 March 2020, an additional four cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed since our earlier update yesterday. This brings the total number of Hunter New England confirmed cases to 30.
Please see the below image for full details.
Yesterday seen the largest jump in cases around the New England Health Region with another 12 people confirmed to have Covid-19 bringing the total number cases to 30
Covid-19 cases have more than doubled from Thursday to Saturday up from 11 to 30 If the numbers continue to double every 48 hours the region will quickly find itself overwhelmed.
We are seeing a surge of people returning from overseas as the world goes into lockdown which accounts for some of these cases but not all as some are being infected by known cases.
St Patricks Public School in Cessnock sent notices to parents yesterday to inform them a daughter of a teacher at the school has been diagnosed with COVID-19, parents have been informed via a private Facebook group of the movements of the teacher, but this information has not been made public.
***UPDATE***
We can confirm the teacher in question works at at St Patrick’s two days a week and also works at Mt View high as well, The daughter returned from Canada on March 11 and had no symptoms of Covid-19 but requested to be tested anyways. On March 13th the teacher meet face to face with the daughter for a few hours one time and has had no contact since. Important to note there was no mandatory requirements for the daughter to self-isolate. The teacher is now self isolating as a precaution and is not displaying any symptoms of Covid-19.
The New Cases.
- A female in her 20s and a female in her 50s are in home isolation; both are close contacts of a previously announced case
- -A male in his 60s is in home isolation after travelling on the Ruby Princess
- A female in her 60s is receiving care at John Hunter Hospital after being in contact with a confirmed case in Sydney
- A male in his 20s is in home isolation; he is a close contact of a confirmed case
- A female in her 70s is in home isolation after returning from Vietnam and Cambodia
- A female in her late teens is in home isolation after returning from Europe
- A female in her 70s is receiving care in Westmead hospital after travelling on the Ruby Princess.
The good news is that there are no new unknown sources of the virus breaking out in the Hunter Region at this stage as New England Health continue the amazing job of tracking and isolating cases.