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UFS chief executive Lynne McLennan has confirmed that testing hours at the UFS Respiratory Clinic in Errard Street have been extended until 8pm and extra staff called in to help deal with the surge in demand for testing since the start of the Holiday Inn COVID outbreak and statewide lockdown.
Same day urgent appointments are available for anyone who has been directed to undergo testing as a result of possible exposure to a confirmed case, and to essential workers, but are available only by calling the clinic on 03 431 115.
Anyone else with symptoms should call or book online.
EARLIER
A surge in Ballarat residents seeking COVID-19 testing since the start of the Holiday Inn outbreak, which lead to the state-wide lockdown, is likely to see extra capacity added to the city's testing sites on Monday.
With the first non-urgent testing appointments at the UFS respiratory clinic not available until Tuesday, UFS chief executive Lynne McLennan said they would be looking to extend testing hours.
But she assured anyone who was directed to get tested as a close contact of a confirmed case, and essential workers, could still call the clinic for a same-day test.
"We have been monitoring it really closely ... but we still have urgent bookings if people get a direction from the health department to get tested and for essential workers."
The clinic has also seen an increase in children and families coming in for testing with coughs and colds being transmitted via children at school over the past two weeks.
"There are definitely more coughs and colds around because of germy children, and I think probably there's always been a few people who say 'it's just a cold' but are coming out for testing a bit more now," Ms McLennan said.
At times over the weekend the private drive-through testing facility in Skipton Street had more than half a dozen cars in the queue for testing.
The Holiday Inn outbreak has now grown to 16 cases, with two new locally acquired COVID-19 infections linked to the cluster that has plunged Victoria into a five- day lockdown.
Ms McLennan said there had been a "trickle of people" come in for testing in Ballarat who had been to a Melbourne exposure site or were connected to the Holiday Inn in some way.
"The health department has identified just under 1000 close contacts and that, in the context of the Victorian population, is not particularly large," she said.
Ms McLennan said even though there had been no confirmed cases in regional Victoria, it was important the five-day lockdown was statewide.
"The thing to remember is the Jetstar terminal, for eight hours, had a highly infectious person who didn't know they were infectious working there. We don't know if there were people from the Ballarat region who came home on Jetstar and passed through or got a coffee ... just the fact it was the Jetstar terminal means the whole of the state is at risk.
"There's a lot of Ballarat traffic up and down to Melbourne and through the airport so we can't really say it doesn't affect us ... it does affect us as we are very closely linked to Melbourne.
"The five days of really hard lockdown is vital to break that (transmission) even though their contact tracing is much faster these days."
IN OTHER NEWS
Health Minister Martin Foley confirmed both new locally acquired cases reported on Sunday were connected to the outbreak at the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel at Melbourne Airport. They are a three-year-old child and woman from separate households who attended a private family function on Sydney Road, Coburg on February 6.
Four new exposure sites were identified as a result of the new cases and include a Woolworths and bakery at Broadmeadows and two swimming centres at Pascoe Vale.
There are now close to 940 primary close contacts associated with the Holiday Inn cases who are isolating for 14 days and being tested.
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