Beef, lamb and pork processing plants and abattoirs will be reducing their operations to two-thirds of their normal output, but Premier Daniel Andrews has warned Victorians against panic buying.
While shoppers may no longer be able to get the cut of meat they may desire, Mr Andrews warned against stocking up on meat products, explaining it would worsen the state's supply and distribution significantly.
"It'll only make things harder if people who have the means to do it, go and buy enormous quantities of food,'' he said. ''That'll just mean that other people, potentially, don't get the things that they need. That's why the supermarkets have put a number of buying limits in place."
His plea for shoppers to refrain from rushing to supermarkets and butchers and buying meat came as he announced Victoria had recorded 471 new coronavirus cases and eight deaths, far fewer than the record 725 cases and 15 deaths reported on Wednesday.
He also revealed that health department officials have added 107 mystery cases to Victoria's tally of community transmission.
"They won't be from today's data, and those cases that are under investigation, they will lag behind a day or two, but that's from that coronavirus detective work that's been done from yesterday's numbers and the numbers before," Mr Andrews said.
Daniel Andrews said more than 100 mystery cases had been added to Victoria’s tally of community transmission.Credit:Getty
Last Sunday, Mr Andrews cited 760 mystery cases – of which the origins of infection remain unknown – as the catalyst for the government declaring a state of disaster and announcing harsh, stage four lockdown restrictions.
But there will be much more unknown community transmission across Melbourne that is not yet accounted for in the figures.
There are now 7449 active coronavirus cases in Victoria, including 1533 linked to staff and residents in aged care homes.
Mr Andrews said two men in their 60s, three men and two women in their 80s, and one woman in her 90s have died from the virus in the past 24 hours. Four of the latest deaths are linked to aged care.
Meat supply reduced
Chicken producers will be operating at 80 per cent of their normal capacity, Mr Andrews revealed in the update on Thursday.
"The difference in the life cycle of those birds means that if you were to reduce down to say that 66 per cent number, then there would be hundreds of thousands of animals that would be essentially destroyed, but not processed and that would lead to some, I think, very significant shortages of product," Mr Andrews said. "So they will be, by agreement, going down to an 80 percent measure.
"For seafood, those centres that are below 40 staff, these rules won't apply."
Mr Andrews added: "We think that's the appropriate balance. All of these measures are designed to drive down to the lowest numbers of workers we can practically get to without at the same time delivering a shortage of products."
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