The spike in Victorian coronavirus cases has led to Murrumbidgee Local Health District putting in measures to protect the region.
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"Whilst we can continue to say that we've only had 45 cases in our region and it's been 10 weeks since we've had a new case, obviously everybody in our region will share our concern about what we're seeing currently unfolding in Victoria," MLHD CEO Jill Ludford said.
Ms Ludford described it as a spike and transmission of the virus among the community which has led to the new measures.
MLHD is also working transport providers servicing the Murrumbidgee to ensure passengers arriving from
While extra screening for people who may visited Melbourne recently was put in place last week, new measures will also impact staff members.
Ms Ludford said all staff who had travelled to Melbourne in the past 14 days needed to self-isolate for a further two weeks before returning to work.
"We did have 66 people who travelled to Melbourne in the last 14 days ... We've got 3900 staff in Murrumbidgee and 500 of those live in [regional] Victoria," Ms Ludford said.
"We've also got a range of doctors who live in Melbourne and come and work for us ... so the restrictions on people not being able to work and going into isolation has had an impact on our services across the district."
Ms Ludford said it had been a "critical piece of work" to "plug the holes" in health services resulting from the new restrictions.
"It's very important that we've done that. Yes it's been painful ... at the end of the day for me it's about keeping our patients safe," she said.
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Testing will be increased across MLHD's area to detect any cases of the virus.
"What's important now is if we do get a seeding of a case, we need to detect it early," she said.
"We're doing lots more screening down near the border area, we've got two mobile vans and emergency departments are the border are also undertaking screening."
Ms Ludford said anyone with symptoms should get tested.
She said testing was free, and that if the test result was negative people could return to work.