Portland District Health confirms second case of coronavirus after Melbourne resident returned

A Melbourne resident who travelled to Portland for family reasons and did not break any lockdown restrictions, tested positive to COVID-19 in Portland on Wednesday after displaying symptoms for the virus.

Ms Giles said a resident in the same household returned a positive test on Thursday.

"We had one case we tested on Saturday and that was found to be positive on Wednesday and today we have another test who's comeback from the same household," she said.

"The contact tracing for these cases is well and truly underway and DHHS is saying there's not a lot of contact with the public.

"They haven't found any places in Portland where these people have spent a significant amount of time.

"They're working on getting any close contacts tested.

"We've also changed our laboratory so our testing is going to go to a different laboratory so we can get a quicker turnaround time to alleviate anyone's anxiety."

Ms Giles urged the Portland community not to create hysteria around the positive cases.

"If you've been doing the right thing; social distancing, washing your hands and having good sneeze and cough etiquette, then you're not putting yourself at risk," she said.

"The key message is just to get tested."

Ms Giles said one Portland business had elected to undertake a deep clean of their premises but DHHS's contact tracing would determine whether it was a requirement for any other businesses.

The chief executive reiterated the hospital was prepared if more tests returned positive.

"We do have cases in our community but they are isolated," she said.

"Our staff have spent six months getting ready to manage this. We've had lots of people coming to the hospital with respiratory symptoms and we treat them as if they're positive and there are different zones in the hospital set up to manage coronavirus.

"The fever clinic is getting about 100 calls a day and all of them, except for these two positive cases, have been coughs, cold and flu. There's other things out there.

"This is an opportunity for our staff to hone the skills they've been practising for six months and I think they're doing really well and being very professional.

"We know there's support if we need from Warrnambool, Hamilton and even down to Geelong.

"We're not going it alone."

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