Sydney Radisson Blu hotel under scrutiny after new Covid case

A traveller in quarantine at a CBD hotel has been infected with the same Covid variant as two people in the room next door.

Health officials are scrambling to work out how a quarantining traveller tested positive for the same Covid-19 sequence as two cases in the hotel room next door.

A returned traveller who was staying on the fourth floor of the Radisson Blu quarantine hotel on O’Connell St, Sydney tested positive for Covid-19 on June 5, according to NSW Health.

A statement from health officials said the positive case followed two positive tests from a couple staying next door three days earlier.

A quarantined traveller at the Radisson Blu hotel in Sydney has tested positive to the same Covid strain as other hotel guests. Picture: Supplied

“Genomic sequencing has shown all three cases have identical viral sequences of the Alpha strain (B.1.1.7),” the NSW Health statement read.

“The couple, who were asymptomatic, tested positive to Covid-19 on a routine Day 2 test on 3 June … it is currently unclear how and where transmission occurred.”

All three cases, who were on the same flight home from Doha, Qatar on June 1, have since been moved out of the quarantine hotel and into Special Health Accommodation.

Staff who worked on the fourth floor and other returned travellers on the same floor between June 1 to June 5 who have left hotel quarantine are being contacted and asked to get tested and isolate pending further advice.

NSW Health’s statement said officials were looking at all possible points of transmission from the couple to the secondary case but there was “no evidence” yet of more cases linked to the trio.

“Early possibilities as to where transmission may have occurred from the couple to the secondary case include on the flight, on transport from the airport to the hotel, in the lobby of the hotel, or while in quarantine,” the statement read.

“Currently, there is no evidence of further transmission.”