"How did you get it so wrong?" Karl grills Vic minister

Karl Stefanovic says he felt "sick and angry" while unleashing at the nation's Aged Care Minister in an interview over Victoria's crisis Tuesday morning.

“We’ve lost 100 people in 10 days. How did you get it so wrong?” he probed Richard Colbeck on the Today Show.

The minister said the government had a plan in place since January and it has “evolved” ever since.

“The plan wasn’t good enough,” Mr Stefanovic responded bluntly before there was an awkward pause.

“Well, Karl, as we’ve learnt about the virus, we’ve continued to evolve the plan,” Mr Colbeck said.

“We’ve implemented things that we’ve learnt from other places, including Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch. I’ve seen that happen every day in Victoria as we’ve been battling through, you unfortunately, we’re in a very difficult situation in Victoria at the moment.”

Mr Stefanovic went on to ask why the aged care watchdog took a whopping four days to let the Health Department know about a coronavirus outbreak at St. Basils.

Mr Colbeck said there were “gaps in the systems” and he only found out about the communication breakdown on Friday.

“How did you find out on Friday?” Stefanovic asked.

“I mean, that’s unbelievable!”

Me Colebeck responded: “Well, the Commissioner advised me on Friday morning. I met with the Commissioner and the department early that morning.”

“I had a full brief by Friday afternoon and I advised the Senate committee where we’d give evidence the previous Tuesday, on Friday night.

“And that gap has been fixed but might I point out, Karl, that was exposed by the fact that neither DHHS nor the provider had actually advised the Federal Government of the outbreak at the facility.”

On Monday, Victoria recorded 322 cases and 19 deaths.

It is the state’s worst daily death toll since the pandemic began.