Victoria records 19 deaths as state launches heart-wrenching new ad campaign

Victoria has recorded a total of 322 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, along with a further 19 deaths. Premier Daniel Andrews delivered his daily update just after 11am on Monday and confirmed that 14 of the 19 deaths were related to outbreaks in aged care.

One male in his 50s, one female in her 60s, two males in their 70s, one male and six females in their 80s and one male and seven females in their 90s have sadly passed away as a result of Covid-19 since yesterday.

“On behalf of all Victorians we send our best wishes, love and support, and condolences and sympathies to the families of those 19 Victorians,” Andrews said. “This will be an incredibly difficult time for them, and knowing that all Victorians are with you is a comfort, some small comfort at a very difficult time.”

Andrews also confirmed that the state now has a total of 7,869 active cases, with 1,756 of those linked to aged care and 1,065 of those cases being health care workers.

A total of 640 Victorians are currently in hospital, with 47 people receiving intensive care and 31 on ventilators.

Addressing the media today, Andrews also unveiled a new advertising campaign which focuses on the health impact of Covid-19, particularly how it affects people of all ages. Some adverts have also been shot by nurses to be distributed amongst multi-cultural communities, where English may not be the first language.

The heart-wrenching adverts feature real-life Covid-19 survivors who share their own experiences of contracting and living with the virus. One woman, in her 30s, urges people to think about “who they love most”, and imagine them in ICU, whenever they consider breaking health guidelines.

“Dealing with COVID has been nothing like I have ever experienced before. It started off generally with the flu-like symptoms,” the woman says. “I was debilitated with chest pains. I was inflamed to the point I wasn’t able to fully inflate my lunging or exhale without excruciating pain.

“It feels like coronavirus has attacked every single one of my body symptoms. Four weeks into my journey with COVID I still feel like I’m incapacitated and can’t care for myself.”

She continues: “I have two little boys and I decided to isolate away from them. They’re with their dad half the time and they’re with my parents. Being separated from them for five or six weeks now has been incredibly hard. It’s absolutely heart-wrenching hearing them say, ‘Mummy, why people doing the wrong things? Why isn’t the coronavirus going away’.

“If you think about bending the rules, think about who you love most in the world and think of them in ICU.”

Discussing the campaign, the premier said: “We have changed many, many times trying to refine the message, to target the message and we will continue to do that, but I would just say certainly from my sense of things at the moment is that people – a larger percentage, a larger proportion of the Victorian community are doing the right thing than was the case a couple of weeks ago and I think that’s something we should all be proud of.

“This strategy is difficult, it’s heartbreaking, it’s very challenging, but it’s the only one that will drive down movement across Victoria and, therefore, drive down case numbers and that’s what we have to be focused on.”