‘I am incredibly fearful’: regional Victoria pushed to its limit by Covid outbreak

With a third of the state's close contacts located outside Melbourne, anxiety is mounting over long testing lines, lack of surge workforce and limited vaccine supply

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For four days the footy ground in Mildura in north-west Victoria has been the central coil in a slow-moving snake of cars inching bumper-to-bumper through kilometres of gridded streets, waiting to be greeted by health staff in PPE wielding coronavirus swabs.

It is the most visible sign of a regional health system experts say has been pushed to its limit attempting to smother a spot fire of the global pandemic that landed on its doorstep.