Six new cases of COVID recorded in Riverina to 8pm

This adds to two cases reported yesterday in Albury, bringing the latest positive test results in the city to six, and 16 since July.

Three of the new Albury cases are household contacts of the original case that visited Zed Bar last Friday and three remain under investigation.

Murrumbidgee Local Health District public health director Tracey Oakman said MLHD expected further cases to arise from seven venues of concern, which include the Kinross.

"There have been a number of venues of concern identified ... largely exposures around the 10th of October and the 11th of October," she said.

"Additional testing has been set up in Jindera."

That additional testing at the recreation reserve (until 2pm) is related to a student at St John's Lutheran School Jindera who has tested positive - reported to MLHD yesterday and remaining under investigation.

"There has been an exposure at a school and the Department of Education ... is working with the schools to identify children who may have been at risk for that exposure," Ms Oakman said.

"Generally, anyone who was in a class with that child will be a close contact, and anyone else at the school is generally a casual contact ... depending on activities.

"We don't know that the Albury and Jindera cases are linked at this point; we haven't managed to connect them all just yet.

"At the moment, we've got two cases that have been to the Zed Bar that we're aware of that were there at the time that the infectious case was there.

"For anyone who has been to Zed Bar or any of those other shops that we've listed on the site, guidance for you is to stay home until you get your test results.

"We've interviewed the cases that we've got, and they've told us where they've been to to date, but sometimes of course, people remember things that they'd forgotten."

Exposure sites continue to emerge in the region, with Albury's Whitehouse Motorcycles closing today:

"It has come to our attention that we have had a positive case attend our store on Wednesday the 13th of October between 3.00pm and 4.00pm," they said.

"The customer had very minimal contact and all staff involved are being tested and quarantined according to medical advice.

"We are closed for deep cleaning and awaiting advice from the correct agencies.

"We encourage anybody who was here within or nearby these times if you have any symptoms please go and get tested."

Ms Oakman was not aware any of the cases having travelled outside of the region.

"From my understanding, none of those people have travelled to Melbourne or Sydney, but in terms of whether they've been in contact with someone that has been to those areas is difficult," she said.

"We haven't been able to identify an obvious source of infection at this point.

"Genomic testing does take many weeks to get done.

"It probably won't impact specifically on our investigations in our response, because it takes a long time to come back.

"I think that potentially they could be linked, but we haven't found that link yet, so until we know otherwise, we'll have to treat them each individually on their own merit.

"It is possible there's a couple of exposures."

One new case was recorded in the Murray River and remains under investigation.

IN OTHER NEWS:

There is a total of 58 cases reported in the MLHD since the start of the current outbreak and one death.

These include 25 in Hilltops LGA, 16 in Albury LGA, nine in Edward River LGA, two in Wagga Wagga LGA, two in Murray River LGA, one in Griffith LGA, one in Federation LGA, one in the Greater Hume LGA and one in the Berrigan LGA.

For a full list of exposure sites in the Southern Riverina and North East click here.

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