Chains of transmission: How the Modbury cluster started and how it quickly spread
It started with a surprise case in the early hours of Monday morning. By Friday, one positive case at Modbury Hospital had risen to 15. Here’s how a case became a cluster.
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The Modbury cluster jumped from a single case on Monday to 15 cases by Friday and some 80 exposure sites, plunged the state into lockdown and put thousands into strict quarantine.
Contact tracing using QR codes then clues such as CCTV and credit card statements, mass testing, SMS alerts telling high risk people to immediately quarantine and the lockdown are all part of frantic efforts to contain the highly transmissible Delta strain
Explore the infographic, and the words, below to see how it has spread so far:
Man, 81, from Argentina
June 24: Man with a pre-existing medical condition arrives in Sydney from Buenos Aires with his Adelaide-based daughter who had been given a compassionate exemption to accompany him. Completes full 14 days quarantine - 10 of which were spent in hospital after a fall. Both tested negative while in Sydney. He and his daughter fly to Adelaide on July 8, at which time they were not obliged to isolate.
Patient zero, Sunday July 18
The man falls ill and goes to Modbury Hospital. Test results at 2.30am the following morning confirm he is positive, triggering an immediate health response. Genomic tests show no links to strains in Argentina, and match the case to the NSW Delta strain. Officials unsure if he caught the virus in a Sydney medi-hotel, hospital, taxi or at the airport, but say there have been no other cases at the medi-hotel or hospital. Modbury ED goes into lockdown and health staff, including paramedics, are put in quarantine.
Man and woman in their 50s
Monday July 19: Sixteen close contacts told to isolate, and two of these including the 81-year-old man’s daughter, test positive. An expanding list of exposure sites is compiled where the three positive cases so far had visited. Test alerts are sent to people who had used QR codes at exposure sites telling them to isolate and get tested.
Two men in their 60s
Tuesday July 20: Two more close contacts test positive, men in their 60s. The list of exposure sites continues to grow. Text alerts continue to be sent to people who had been in high-risk places at the times listed, advising them and their families to isolate and be tested.
Woman in her 20s.
Wednesday July 21: Woman in her 20s tests positive. One of the men in his 60s who tested positive on Tuesday had been at The Greek on Halifax restaurant in the CBD for a birthday party on the previous Saturday night, before the looming outbreak had been identified. The woman was working there on the Saturday night. With no clue of the danger, the woman shopped at Burnside Village the following afternoon, turning it into an exposure site. She also worked at Westminster School at Marion on Monday, from 8.15am-4.30pm. Monday was a pupil-free day but teachers were at the school for training. The school is added to the list of exposure sites.
Numbers double
Wednesday July 21: A late press conference reveals the six cases in the cluster has risen to 12 including a child aged under 5 who was at The Greek restaurant on Saturday. The child had attended a child care centre on Monday which is now an exposure site. The other five cases were at Tenafeate Creek Wines, at Yattalunga, on Sunday, listed as an exposure site between 1.45pm-4.30pm when the daughter of patient zero had visited. The five are three women, aged in their 50s, 60s and 80s; and two men one aged in his 50s and the other in his 40s. All dined inside but were not all in one group. The man in his 40s is a teacher at Gawler and District College B-12 at Evanston and attended the school the day after being at the winery. The school is now an exposure site and all who were there on the Monday are required to quarantine while a risk assessment is done. A SMS alert had gone out on Monday night to all people who had been at the winery on the Sunday and had checked in using the QR code, telling them to isolate – but this was after the child had gone to daycare and the teacher to school.
Siblings, 20s
Thursday July 22: A brother and sister in their 20s who were at the winery test positive, although their parents who were also at the function test negative. More exposure sites are listed including Tier 1 (quarantine immediately) at parts of TAFE’s Regency Campus on Monday and Tuesday where one of the siblings attended. Cluster has grown to 14 since Monday.
Man in 60s
Friday July 23: An eighth case linked to the winery is confirmed, the man in his 60s had been in quarantine since being notified on Monday and tested negative on Tuesday, indicating he was not infectious before he isolated when notified on Monday. His wife also isolated and she is now in a medi-hotel. Modbury cluster now 15.
High-risk sites
Chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier says The Greek on Halifax on Saturday, July 17, 6pm-10pm, and Tenafeate Creek Wines, at Yattalunga, on Sunday, July 18, 1.45pm-4.30pm are potential super spreader exposure sites of particular concern as people are likely to have spent a long time in each with close contact with others.
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