RESIDENTS of an Eaglehawk aged care facility are locked down after a positive COVID-19 case was uncovered.
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A resident has tested positive after leaving Benetas' St Laurence Court home for a Christmas celebration with their family.
Their granddaughter later tested positive for COVID-19. The home was alerted on Thursday and its staff conducted a rapid antigen test with the resident.
It returned a positive result.
The home is now awaiting the result of a more accurate PCR test, Benetas chief executive Sandra Hills said.
"Thankfully the resident remains well," she said.
The Bendigo Advertiser understands staff began the lock down on Thursday as soon as the COVID-19 results were confirmed, including moving residents who who had been in the middle of lunch.
Residents are now being cared for in their rooms and visitors are being barred from entering the facility.
That will continue as additional COVID-19 testing is carried out, Ms Hills said.
The Department of Health is considering the incident to be an outbreak as a resident is affected, she said.
"To be cautious, Benetas identified and isolated any close contact employees, arranged a deep clean of the home, all employees are in full Personal Protective Equipment and residents are having RAT [rapid antigen] tests daily," Ms Hill said.
"We are hopeful we can resolve this quickly as all employees and the majority of residents have been fully vaccinated, with many now having received their booster shots."
Multiple aged care and residential facilities are currently dealing with COVID-19 cases across Victoria.
The biggest outbreak is at Mordialloc's BlueCross Elly Kay facility.
It has 29 active cases.
The cluster is the fourth biggest in the state, behind Melbourne's St Paul's Cathedral outbreak on 60 cases, a Melbourne Restaurant on 40 and St Vincent's emergency department on 30.
Greater Bendigo has seen a marked increase in active case numbers since Christmas, with multiple days of double digit growth in numbers.
The National Cabinet agreed to major changes on Thursday to deal with blowouts in testing wait times, including an increased reliance on rapid antigen tests at state testing centres.
It came on a day when more than 20,000 COVID-19 cases were uncovered nation-wide.
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