By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Six residents at Belvedere Aged Care in Noble Park and a resident at Regis Aged Care in Dandenong North have died as part of current Covid outbreaks.
They are among 39 residents and eight staff at Belvedere and 23 residents and four staff at Regis that have been infected as of 31 October.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of our residents, an awful consequence of the COVID-pandemic,” Belvedere stated on its website.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with their loved ones at this sad time.”
According to a statement on the Belvedere website, the facility was now in a “recovery phase” with no new cases for four consecutive days.
Most residents and staff were nearing the end of their 14-day period.
Other aged care homes in Greater Dandenong with Covid outbreaks are Arcare Keysborough (20 residents, 11 staff) and Rosewood Downs Dandenong (14 residents).
Meanwhile, two clusters totalling 80 Covid cases have been apparently linked in error to Dandenong Hospital.
According to a Department of Health list on 31 October, 69 cases were linked to the hospital’s emergency department and 11 to the general hospital.
A Monash Health spokesperson said there was no outbreak at the hospital.
He said the figures may have been inflated by close-contact numbers, which also led to a wrongfully-listed cluster at Casey Hospital last week.
Active clusters were also reported at CREST Children’s Sanctuary in Dandenong (11), KingKids Early Learning Centre in Hallam (11), Australian Meat Group abattoir in Dandenong South (10) and Dandenong North Primary School (10).
In the past seven days, active cases in Greater Dandenong had dropped by 24 to 1794. Casey’s figure dropped by 276 to 2341.
Postcode hotspots were Dandenong, which has the most active cases in the state (922), Cranbourne (669), Narre Warren (373), Noble Park (362), Hampton Park (248), Springvale (195), Keysborough (188) and Doveton (169).
As of 25 October, Greater Dandenong’s single vaccination rate exceeded 90 per cent. Its lagging double-dose rate had surged to 68 per cent.
Casey’s single dose rate was more than 95 per cent, with 74.5 per cent double dosed.
