317 Victorian infections, three NSW cases unknown if linked to Crossroads
At least one case of coronavirus in NSW has become infectious and shown symptoms within 24 hours of being exposed – a major development that has been labelled “unusual” by one of the nation’s top doctors.
NSW
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One of the nation’s leading doctors has revealed at least one case of coronavirus in NSW has become infectious and shown symptoms within 24 hours of being exposed – a major development that has been labelled “unusual” as the state’s COVID-19 cases continue to rise.
Australian Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd this afternoon said at least one case in NSW had become infectious within 24 hours of being infected with COVID-19.
This is much faster than what they have ever seen before with people usually becoming infectious around three days on from exposure.
“We have received some additional advice from NSW about at least one person who appears to have become infectious within 24 hours of being infected with COVID-19,” he said.
“The advice from infectious disease experts and the AHPPC is that while this is unusual, it is not implausible. There is a wide distribution in the incubation period for COVID-19 and the time that people become and remain infectious.
“People usually develop symptoms within five to seven days of infection but may be infectious one or two days before the symptoms develop. As we see large numbers with COVID-19 infected, in Australia, we are starting to see examples of people with early infectivity.”
Community transmission of COVID-19 has grown this week with just 3 per cent of new national cases being overseas acquired.
The warning comes after one coronavirus infected man with a high viral load and a crowded pub created a perfect super spreader storm that has put NSW in danger of lockdown once again.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the Melbourne freight worker’s viral load gave him “one of the highest infection levels we’ve ever seen”.
ANU infectious diseases expert Prof Peter Collignon said high viral loads could be down to the time of the infection and the genetics of the carrier — but it made them highly infectious.
“A high viral load means they are carrying much more of the virus than in other people. We don’t know why, it may be genetic,” he said.
Research has shown that 20 per cent of people — superspreaders — will infect 80 per cent of people who go near them.
Prof Collignon said people with high viral loads were likely to become superspreaders when they entered “superspreader environments” such as crowded pubs like the Crossroads Hotel in Casula.
“It is very hard to tell if someone who is asymptomatic has a high viral load,” said Prof Collignon.
For the next “two, three or four years” until there is a vaccine he said the only way to avoid super-spreading incidents is to stop super-spreading events such as crowded pubs where people cram together and shout.
Other examples of super-spreading events include, a choir practice in the US which infected 52 and killed two and a wedding in India that infected more than 100 people and killed the groom.
The rise in community transmissions in Australia has sparked the Federal Government to raise heightened concern for those with a disability.
Health authorities today put a spotlight on people living with a disability and the heightened risk of catching coronavirus — with Prof Kidd advising disability support workers and people with a disability to wear masks.
“Disability support workers and people working with people with disability (should) wear face masks when working with clients with a disability in areas of level three restrictions. “People with a disability should wear a mask while receiving services at home,” he said.
“500 million masks have been provided to residential aged care facilities when we have seen transmission in Sydney and today an additional one million masks will be made available for support workers in affected areas in Melbourne.”
Prof Kidd also raised the issue of truck drivers being exempt from border closures and if this risks the spread of the infection.
“The Prime Minister has asked the AHPPC for advice on this and so we expect we will be discussing this tomorrow,” he said.
Another 330 new cases have been reported in Australia with 317 concentrated in Victoria – the highest daily number of cases for the embattled state.
Two people have died from the illness in Victoria, taking the national death toll to 118.
He also raised the issue of truck drivers being exempt from border closures and if this risks the spread of the infection.
“The Prime Minister has asked the AHPPC for advice on this and so we expect we will be discussing this tomorrow,” he said.
Concern over three NSW cases not linked to Crossroads
A cluster of COVID-19 cases that originated in a southwest Sydney pub has now blown out to 40 people — including a child and an elderly man in his 80s.
The state has also found three cases in the southwest region with no known source discovered yet.
NSW recorded 10 new cases of coronavirus in the 24-hour period to 8pm last night of which four were returned travellers in hotel quarantine. Three were linked to the Crossroads Hotel pub outbreak and three are under investigation.
“We are concerned when we find cases that can’t be linked back because it does indicate that we may have missed a chain,” Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said.
“We’ll be reinterviewing cases and trying to ascertain any contact points and updating the community on additional actions.”
Dr Chant said her team was interviewing the mystery cases and cross-referencing them with the list of venues associated with the Crossroads cluster to determine if they were a part of the same outbreak or a different one.
The three cases related to Crossroads included a man in his 20s who spent time with a known case, a man in his 30s who acquired the virus at the Planet Fitness Gym and a woman in her 30s who is the spouse of a known case.
After 8pm, a further four cases were linked to the hotel cluster including a child of a known case, a man in his 30s who is a contact of a known case, an elderly man in his 80s who attended the pub on July 5, and a woman in her late teens who attended the Hurricane’s Grill with a previously known case.
“Since that time, we’ve also had some additional cases notified. There’s been a late teen who attended the Hurricane’s Grill at Brighton Le Sands on the 11th of July in the period 6pm and 8pm. They attended with a known case.”
The venue has been closed for deep cleaning and contact tracing is underway.
The Crossroads cluster has spread as far as North Wollongong with a positive case attending the Rashays restaurant in the region on July 11 between 7pm and 9.30pm.
Another positive case not associated with the Crossroads Cluster has been found in a returned traveller from Victoria who flew into Ballina on flight JQ466 arriving on July 12.
“The person was wearing a surgical mask and self-isolating, but we are doing contact tracing in relation to that Jetstar flight. The individual was screened on arrival at Ballina Airport,” Dr Chant said.
Dr Chant said her team was working on getting the results of more genomic testing to determine if the entirety of new NSW cases can be traced back to Victoria.
She added that the viral load of the Crossroads cluster indicated that several people “were quite infectious” and urged NSW residents to come forward for testing.
Victoria’s record breaking day of cases
Victoria has recorded 317 new cases of coronavirus in the largest daily increase of infections since the pandemic began in Australia.
Two more Victorians, men in their 80s, died in the past 24 hours, bringing the state’s death toll to 29.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he hopes number will start to decline soon.
“We have made the point with these stay at home restrictions only a week old, it will take some time to bring stability to the numbers and start to see a pattern where they are driven down,” he said.
Mr Andrews said it was too early to consider imposing stage four restrictions for Victorians, despite the number of new cases.
“I know there’s been a lot of discussion, a lot written and said about a possible stage 4 – there are no announcements to be made about that today,” Mr Andrews said.
“It’s well too early for us to be moving to a whole new stage,” he said.
The Premier said if Victorians don’t abide by the current restrictions there will be further deaths.
“Everyone would prefer this to be a very different set of circumstances but it’s not an ordinary winter. This is not an ordinary week. If we pretend it is, if we pretend it is over because we want it to be over, all we’ll be doing is spreading the virus, seeing more people in hospital and sadly more people will pass away as a result of this virus,” he said.
In a massive $1.9 billion investment Victoria has secured over a thousand ICU beds to prepare for the second wave.
Hospitals and health facilities that haven’t been used in some time have been converted to ICU capacity to anticipate a flood of patients.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said category three elective surgeries will also be paused in Melbourne in a bid to free up beds.
“We have contingency plans should it be required to exceed what we have already delivered, but we hope of course that capacity will never be required,” Ms Mikakos said.
Fallout of patient zero’s dangerous COVID cargo
A business worker from Melbourne who spread COVID-19 to colleagues before partying with them at a pub has been revealed as patient zero in a snowballing cluster of 34 coronavirus cases that has forced more than 20 Sydney businesses to close and thousands to self-isolate.
The man, only identified as an employee at a Wetherill Park freight company, left Melbourne on June 30 and went to his Sydney workplace where he infected six colleagues before going to a work party with some of them at the Crossroads Hotel on July 3.
Health authorities have confirmed that between one and three people were infected with COVID-19 at the hotel, and the Friday night celebration had last night ballooned out to a cluster of 34 positive cases.
The infected pub-goers and their contacts have then travelled through Sydney, with several businesses going into lockdown now under investigation for further spread.
The viral load in this particular strain was revealed to be so high yesterday that symptoms developed in a day, while the Health Minister likened the current battle we are facing as a “war zone”.
NSW Health COVID operations manager Jennie Musto, who was on Wednesday revealed as the mastermind who helped curtail the spread of the Crossroads cluster, confirmed the party sparked the outbreak.
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The epidemiologist, who spent the past few years working in war zones in Yemen and Bangladesh, said her team of detectives thoroughly interviewed two of the first people to come forward in the cluster before pinning down the common link as their attendance at the Crossroads Hotel.
That discovery led them to the Melbourne freight worker.
“The man from Melbourne didn’t think he was particularly unwell, didn’t think he was sick with COVID. He travelled from Melbourne on the 30th of June,” she said.
“He is in the freight industry, he is not a truckie. There are people who are his colleagues (who were infected) who then went to the party.”
A Woolworths in Bowral, Milky Lane burger joint in Parramatta, Bankstown YMCA in Revesby, Bavarian Macarthur, Macarthur Tavern in Campbelltown and the Wests Leagues Club in Leumeah are among the growing list of venues under investigation.
