Australia records first COVID-19 death in 1 month after seeing spike in cases

A man in his 80s has died from coronavirus in Victoria. The man's death is Australia's first coronavirus death since late May, increasing the national death toll to 103.

Minister for Health Greg Hunt confirmed that Prime Minister Scott Morrison has offered Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews military and contact tracing support.

"Victoria has identified 20 new cases overnight. One from hotel quarantine, seven linked to existing cases, existing clusters and the others are under investigation," said Hunt.

Hunt said it was "one of those difficult days" in Australia's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Somebody has either not known or not done the right thing, so we need to be honest about that, but we need to keep in perspective that Australia, by global standards, is doing extraordinarily well and we will continue to do well," he said.
"But we are facing a challenge. Here in Melbourne, whilst in seven states and territories we have largely achieved a very stable state, at the moment, there is a spike."

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on Wednesday that the government was warned of a "missed opportunity" to prevent coronavirus outbreaks in migrant communities several weeks before the spike in Victoria.

In response, Hunt said the country has been a "world leading" in communicating with communities.

"There have been 4,300 consultations with migrant leaders or communities in different ways, shapes or forms," he said.

As at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, a total of 7,492 cases have been reported in Australia, and 6,915 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19, according to Department of Health.

The department also said that over the past week, there has been an average of 21 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.