News blog, January 27: Goulburn Valley bypass roadblocks; St Georges Road Food Festival returns; Greater Shepp sees 75 new cases

Welcome back to the news blog on this humid and partly cloudy Thursday. We’ve got a high chance of showers in Shepparton today, becoming less likely this arvo, and the chance of another summer thunderstorm.

UPDATE, 4:40 pm: Never too soon to start planning the weekend

Have a glance at our What’s On Guide if you’re already plotting what you’ll get up to this weekend.

Also, anyone considering welcoming a pooch into their home should consider the lovely Renaldo - a nine-month-old boxer-cross ready to be adopted from Shepparton Animal Shelter.

Now I’ll leave you with a few of our arvo headlines:

Bypass blow-out: Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has revealed the cost of the first stage of the Goulburn Valley Bypass project is $1.2 billion.

This is more than three times what was envisaged when his government stumped up $208 million to fund the Commonwealth’s 80 per cent share.

Joyce’s news comes after independent candidate for Nicholls Rob Priestly yesterday called for the Federal Government to begin building the Shepparton bypass.

Mr Priestly said the time for talk had well passed, and did not want the Greater Shepparton community “to be having the same conversation ahead of the 2025 election”.

A rising star: Benalla’s Becky Webster is making waves at Kardinia Park: Having just begun her fourth season at AFLW level, News reporter Zac Standish brings us Webster’s story of how she fell in love with the game and her journey through junior football.

Sheed repeats call for Victorian Government to support Med-Con: A Lemnos based medical supply company, Med-Con has significantly cut down on staff and production since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling in a competitive market with overseas imports and other Australian manufacturers.

UPDATE, 3 pm: Food festival returns

Some delicious news!

After a two-year pandemic-related pause, the St Georges Road Food Festival returns this weekend, with the fragrant scents and tastes of cuisine from across the globe.

The festival will be held this Saturday, January 29 from 5pm to 9pm in St Georges Rd, Shepparton, between Hayes and Swallow Sts.

All attending the festival are required to be double-vaccinated and check-in before entering.

Find all the details in this article.

UPDATE, 1.20 pm: Local case numbers

There are 75 new cases of COVID-19 in Greater Shepparton today, with 337 active cases altogether in the local government area.

UPDATE, 12:15 pm: Greater Shepparton vaccination rates too low

Goulburn Valley Health chief executive Matt Sharp says the third dose vaccination rate of adults and the first dose vaccination rate of children aged five to 11 is “nowhere near” where it needs to be.

"One of the things we're really focusing on this week and into next week is the vaccination rates for two groups where we've got quite low numbers of people who are eligible to be vaccinated who are actually getting vaccinated,“ Mr Sharp said this morning.

Just 32 per cent of people across GV Health's local public health unit who are in the 18+ age group have received their booster dose.

“That's a really low number. And it's something that we're working really hard to address across our area,” Mr Sharp said.

Across Victoria, the third dose vaccination rate is 35 per cent — three percentage points higher than GV Health’s numbers.

“And similarly, we have only 29 per cent of children aged five to 11 who have come forward and got their vaccinations,” Mr Sharp said.

The numbers cited above are based on data from Sunday, 23 January.

UPDATE, 10:25 am: Victorian COVID-19 update

We’ll have greater clarity about the COVID-19 situation in Shepparton today, after GV Health chief executive Matt Sharp holds a press conference at 11 am.

In the meantime, here are the statewide numbers.

There are 1,057 people with COVID-19 admitted to Victorian hospitals today, and 117 of those are in ICU, with 40 on ventilators.

Sadly, another 15 people have died with the virus.

That contributes to a total of 1900 COVID-19 deaths in Victoria since the onset of the pandemic, according to covidlive.com.au, and 3374 deaths across the country during that period.

In terms of third doses, 35 per cent of the 18+ population is now triple-vaxxed in Victoria.

Today there are 13,755 new cases in Victoria, and more than half (7,625) of those were detected with use of rapid antigen tests.

In total there are 119,153 active cases today, about 20,000 fewer than yesterday.

UPDATE, 9 am: All the January 26 coverage in one place

Yesterday’s public holiday saw ceremonies of mourning and ceremonies of celebration.

The First Nations community of Greater Shepparton gathered at the break of dawn in Kaieltheban Park, Mooroopna to recognise and mourn the day they were invaded more than 200 years ago.

The Reconciliation Council and Wulumbarra worked together to organise the Survival Day Dawn Ceremony with dances from Wulumbarra, a smoking ceremony and various speeches from community Elders and leaders.

Citizenship ceremonies and Australia Day awards were aplenty, with events held all over the Goulburn Valley.

Here are the links to our coverage:

The sunny day off work (for some) also involved a suite of Twenty20 grand finals.

Twenty20 A-grade | Northerners clinch elusive grand final success: Northerners prevailed by six wickets over Central Park-St Brendan’s in a roller coaster A-grade Twenty20 grand final.

Twenty20 B-grade | Boyle brilliance leads Mooroopna to glory: Mooroopna has clinched the B-grade Twenty20 grand final off the back of a special performance from Brad Boyle.

Twenty20 C-grade ǀ Murdoch magic seals it for Invergordon: A captain’s knock from Invergordon’s Travis Murdoch ensured the Hawks had one hand on the C-grade flag on Wednesday, after he produced an important first-innings knock to put his side in good stead early.

Twenty20 D-grade ǀ Gagliardi duo delivers Students delight: Scorers worked up a serious sweat in Cricket Shepparton’s D-grade encounter on Wednesday, with Old Students pipping Pine Lodge to the D-grade flag thanks to a Students bowling blitz.

Twenty20 E-grade | Van Dorsser steals the show in decider: On Tuesday afternoon at Mooroopna’s Pee Wee Young Oval it was all about one man and one man only. Onlookers were treated to the Michael Van Dorsser show, with the Mooroopna talent producing an astonishing 97-run knock.