South Australian woman returning from Victoria tests positive to COVID-19 amid reinfection fears

A TV news crew is in home quarantine after interviewing an aged-care worker returning from Victoria who has tested positive to COVID-19.

SA Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier at press conference outside the SA Health building. Picture: Tom Huntley

Urgent coronavirus testing was being carried out on Wednesday night to confirm if an Adelaide aged care nurse returning from Melbourne is one of the country's first COVID-19 reinfections.

In the first case involving an interstate traveller in almost three months, the woman, aged in her 20s, was found infectious on Monday, weeks after being cleared of the virus.

The development emerged ahead of a special COVID meeting tomorrow, which is expected to ease a raft of bans including Victoria’s hard border and hospitality rules including standing up drinking.

Chief public health officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, who sits on the Transition Committee, was hopeful it would not threaten changes.

SA Health launched tests on what Prof Spurrier described as a “complicated” case, while a panel of local and Victorian experts reviewed her medical history.

After authorities scrambled to track her close contacts on Monday night, four people were ordered into quarantine.

The asymptomatic nurse, the state’s 519th case, was in a stable condition on Wednesday night in the Peppers medi-hotel, Waymouth St, while two fellow close contact passengers were isolating in the Pullman Hotel, Hindmarsh Square.

A Channel 9 journalist and camera operator, considered casual contacts, also were isolating at home until tests results were known, while 16 other infectious patients are recovering in medi-hotels.

Prof Spurrier downplayed concerns about community safety but urged anyone with even the mildest of symptoms to get checked.

She said multiple tests would confirm if the nurse’s results were an old case and virus “shedding” – in which antibodies are still detected weeks after an infection – or if she was a rare “reinfection”.

“The probability it is more likely to be part of that old infection,” said Prof Spurrier.

“But we are treating this in terms of being very cautious. I am not concerned from a public health perspective. This person did absolutely the right thing.

“I would be hopeful that we wouldn’t be putting our plans (to ease bans) to the side.

“But again it is too early to tell, we will be doing some more testing around it.”

The woman, deployed as a Commonwealth agency nurse to help fight Victoria’s deadly second wave but who had not worked for almost a month, landed at Adelaide Airport on Monday morning on a Jetstar flight JQ776 after wearing a mask on her flight.

As she collected her bags, the Nine News crew interviewed her by chance in a public place and at a safe distance about travel bans.

Showing no obvious symptoms, the nurse checked into an Adelaide hotel away from her family to complete a fortnight of mandatory quarantine. Her compulsory first day test was positive. It was the first case not involving a returning expatriate since August 22.

She had tested positive in Melbourne in early August before recovering weeks later.

Nine News director Jeremy Pudney said there was no broader risk to other staff.