Hotel Grand Chancellor COVID-19 outbreak: Air conditioning, deliberate breach ruled out

Two of the key possible causes of the Hotel Grand Chancellor COVID-19 outbreak that sparked Brisbane’s three-day lockdown have been ruled out.

Several possible causes of the Hotel Grand Chancellor COVID-19 outbreak have been ruled out as authorities prepare to reveal the outcome of investigations that sparked Brisbane’s three day lockdown.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath today revealed the hotel’s airconditioning has been ruled out as the cause of the cluster along with any deliberate breaches.

Ms D’Ath said she had received the report into the Hotel Grand Chancellor cluster late yesterday afternoon following the infection of six people including a cleaner at the medi-hotel last month.

At the time of the outbreak, authorities could not identity how the woman contracted the virus from an infected guest because she had not had contact with the man, in his 30s, who returned from the UK.

The Hotel Grand Chancellor was the scene of an outbreak. (News Corp/Attila Csaszar)

Mystery surrounded the outbreak, involving four travellers in quarantine at the Grand Chancellor, the cleaner who worked there and her partner.

Genomic sequencing linked all six cases to the highly infectious UK COVID-19 variant, dubbed B117.

But health experts were at a loss to explain how the cleaner became infected or how a father and his adult daughter, recently returned from Lebanon, contracted the virus at the hotel.

The four infected guests were in quarantine on floor seven, but were not in neighbouring rooms, prompting authorities to consider it had been transmitted via airconditioning.

However Ms D’Ath today said the hotel’s airconditioning had been ruled out as a cause of the cluster.

“I expect to be able to make public comments on that report in the next couple of days,” she said.

It came as chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young called for a review of hotel quarantine, given the recent breaches across the country and in New Zealand.

Police outside of Brisbane’s quarantine hotel The Grand Chancellor. Picture: John Gass

“We’ll be able to make our quarantine program stronger and stronger as a result,” she said.

She said 66,000 people had come through hotel quarantine in Queensland during the pandemic.

“We’ve had one that’s been a problem, that has led to community transmission,” she said.

“It’s worked extremely well. I just congratulate our hotels. They have done a first-class job.

“The cleaners, all of those people, working in those hotels have done a brilliant job.”

Dr Young said Australia had a better understanding of the highly contagious UK variant of the virus.

“Every single case has got different nuances ... and we need to be agile with our response,” she said.

A report into the investigation surrounding the outbreak will be made public in coming days. Photo: Dan Peled