“We’ll continue to make changes and redeploy staff to areas that we need to in terms of providing those critical, essential services,” he said.
The Goulburn Valley’s daily number of new COVID-19 cases has begun to trend downwards this week, and hospitalisation rates remain steady.
But that may change when students return to in-person learning on Monday, January 31.
“It’s encouraging that we see the active cases in the community coming down,” Mr Sharp said.
“But in the coming couple of weeks as schools return ... that’s when we start to see the high rates of transmission.”
GV Health recorded 97 new cases of coronavirus across the local public health unit in the latest 24-hour reporting period, announced on Tuesday.
Of those, 41 were in Shepparton, 25 in Mitchell Shire and nine in Campaspe Shire.
It brings the total number of active cases in the local public health unit to 1825.
There are 13 COVID-19-positive patients at GV Health, with two in ICU and one on a ventilator.
Mr Sharp said the hospital expected to see the stabilised rate for at least another week.
“Hospitalisations still remain at a fairly constant level,” he said.
“And we’ve still got everyone working as hard as they have in the hospital.”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced students would undertake twice-weekly rapid antigen tests when they returned to the classroom in order to limit the spread of the Omicron variant.
“That surveillance testing is all about detecting cases, not necessarily every case — that would be almost impossible given the amount of transmission that is in the community,” he said at a press conference on Sunday.
“It is about finding as many cases as we can and shutting down those chains of transmission.”
Mr Sharp said he hoped as many children aged five to 11 as possible received their first vaccination before school returned and announced the Shepparton Vaccination Hub was available for walk-in children’s vaccinations from 9am to 4.30pm on Wednesday.
“We’ve also got walk-in appointments on Saturday for five- to 11-year-olds and for booster doses as well,” he said.
The number of furloughed staff at the hospital has continued to drop, with 64 staff unable to attend work.
Fifty-four of those have tested positive to COVID-19.
“This time last week or a few days earlier, we were in the order of 160 staff that were furloughed,” Mr Sharp said.
“We’ve been able to return a number of staff back to work under close (testing) surveillance.”
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