ARARAT residents have watched from afar during the pandemic as regional Victorian local government areas across the state have been put into lockdown, sometimes on more than one occasion.
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It's a question often asked when data, buzzwords and the like are thrown around.
But how does a local government area get put into lockdown? What's the magic number? Are we heading that way in Ararat in light of the four new cases on Sunday?
Grampians Region Public Health Unit clinical director Karen Aarons said the question about lockdowns wasn't as straightforward of an answer as it sounds.
She said a lockdown was not only based on testing numbers and cases - but a whole range of considerations.
"A lockdown is related to the story behind cases. It's really important to understand that because cases that have been in quarantine for their entire infectious period is a very different story to cases in the community who are unlinked and there is uncertainty," she said.
"What the Public Health Unit is looking for is the story behind the cases that are coming through. Are they linked?"
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Dr Aarons said the more people who turned out to get tested, the better understanding was put to the situation.
"(more testing) the better it is to capture any cases if they were to come through," she said.
"It's so that story is a positive one and we're on top of it really quickly and we reduce the chance of needing to have a lockdown."
Grampians Region Public Health Unit medical director Associate Professor Rosemary Aldrich said the reason any region went into lockdown was that there was a concern of uncontrolled, undetected spread.
"By having people stay at one place and only going out for the very limited number of permitted reasons means it allows the contact tracing teams and the civic leaders to get a handle on what they are dealing with," she said.
"We can then actually thoroughly and very rapidly to make sure we do those things that we do with any case response - which is we identify the case, provide care for the case - but we work also to contain the links around that case.
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"We contain the exposures and the spread around that case. Through understanding where they've been and what they've done, we then find out who their contacts are so we work with all of their primary close contacts.
"We also make sure we communicate what we've done."
Dr Aarons said as of Sunday 2pm, there was no indication there was a need for a lockdown in Ararat.
"Obviously to increase the likelihood of remaining that way the more testing we get done, the more vaccination we get done, it's all part of the bigger picture.. it protects the community and reduces the risk," she said.