COVID NSW: No new local cases, AstraZeneca vaccine safe, Premier says

The household contacts of an infected Sydney security guard have tested negative to COVID while the Premier has declared the AstraZeneca vaccine safe.

The household contacts of a Sydney security guard who was infected with COVID have tested negative to the virus, NSW Health says.

Contact tracers are scrambling to determine how the 47-year-old man caught the UK strain of virus while working at Sydney’s Sofitel Wentworth. He tested positive on Saturday.

However, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the situation could become similar to the Northern Beaches outbreak where the source has still not been discovered.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Tuesday. Picture: Jeremy Piper

A recently returned traveller at the Sofitel Wentworth. Picture: Jeremy Piper

“We have to accept we may never find that link, and similarly with the Avalon cluster, we still don’t know today the main source of the link that escaped into the community,” she said.

“What I’m very positive about is that until a few hours before this press conference (on Tuesday morning) there’s been no cases of community transmission since that time.”

There were no further locally acquired COVID cases detected in NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday but testing continues on close contacts of the guard.

Genome sequencing confirmed the state’s first case in 55 days is the UK strain of COVID-19, which is believed to be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than other variants.

Premier Berejiklian added she was not concerned about Italy, France, Germany and Spain suspending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine over negative side effects.

Travellers arrive at the Sofitel hotel in Sydney for their mandatory quarantine period. Picture: Jeremy Piper

However the World Health Organisation said there has been no proven link between the vaccine and reported side-effects.

“The best health advice we’re getting in Australia is that it (the vaccine) is absolutely safe,” Premier Berejiklian said.

“I’ve already had the first jab of the AstraZeneca and I feel much safer.”

The security guard who contracted coronavirus was given the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on March 2.

The man works as a security guard at two quarantine hotels in Sydney and tested positive for the virus on Saturday night after contracting it from a returned traveller staying at the Sofitel Wentworth.

He then worked at the Mantra quarantine hotel on Friday while infectious and contact tracers were scrambling to reach out to all colleagues who worked that night shift with him.