Coronavirus NSW: Northern Beaches cluster grows to 17
Northern beaches residents have effectively been placed under a three-day stay-at-home order following an explosion in COVID cases.
NSW
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Northern beaches residents have effectively been placed under a three day stay at home order following an explosion in COVID cases.
Twelve additional cases were detected after a testing blitz on Thursday evening, taking the outbreak to a total of 17 cases.
Adding to the emerging crisis, a deep clean was ordered for the department of education’s offices in Eveleigh after an IT worker in the department tested positive.
All other staff in the departmental offices were sent home to self isolate until further notice.
Extra precautions were put in place for the Eveleigh building caters to a number of companies last night.
Meanwhile NSW Health, awaiting genomic sequencing, believe the source of the northern beaches outbreak points to an overseas strain of the virus indicating a possible leak in the state’s border quarantine measures.
NSW Health is now “imploring” residents to stay at home, limit interactions, and avoid travel outside the area.
For the next three days, Northern Beaches locals have been asked to work from home and stay at home as much as possible.
“We are imploring people on the northern beaches to take high caution. If they can work from home, work from home,” Health Minister Brad Hazzard told The Daily Telegraph.
NSW Health has asked residents to “not visit friends or relatives in aged care facilities or hospitals unless essential, avoid unnecessary gatherings, (and) keep to your household group”.
Residents are also asked to avoid “high-risk” venues like clubs, restaurants, places of worship and gyms.
Travel outside the area is also off the cards.
“Definitely don’t go outside the northern beaches and if you must, then exercise high caution,” Mr Hazzard said.
Before the new cases were identified, WA Premier Mark McGowan announced anyone who travelled into WA from NSW since December 11 must isolate stay there until returning a negative result.
Anyone planning to fly into the state must get tested on arrival and isolate until testing negative.
It comes as an urgent testing blitz was launched in Avalon on Thursday as NSW Health worked to track down the source of the growing COVID cluster that could have started with a mystery case at the Avalon RSL.
Chief health officer Kerry Chant said it was “critical” that anyone at the club on Friday December 11 come forward for testing, as authorities scrambled to identify the source of an emerging outbreak that has put the state on edge just before Christmas.
NSW Health was yesterday working under the theory that someone who attended the RSL club was the original source of up to five cases identified on Wednesday and Thursday.
The cases include two Avalon residents — a 65 year old woman and a man in his 70s — who both live together.
As well as venues on the northern beaches two new locations were added to coronavirus alerts this evening.
Anyone who attended Penrith RSL on December 13 between 1-6pm and the Kirribilli Club on December 14 between 12-3pm should get tested immediately and isolate until they get a negative result.
The partner of a woman who tested positive on Thursday morning has now also tested positive, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.
Mr Hazzard confirmed a man in his 60s who tested positive for the virus this morning plays in a band - called “Nothing Too Serious” - and had travelled extensively.
The band’s guitarist said they are all really health conscious and do not think they have been the cause of the outbreak.
Tony Le Bars said the members of Nothing Too Serious were told this morning by their drummer that he had tested positive.
“He’s very sad, he is so conscious of his own health and of those around him,” Mr Le Bars said today.
“We have told him he is not to blame.”
Nothing Too Serious was playing at Avalon RSL on Friday night in a gig that was attended by a local elderly couple who health authorities revealed had tested positive to the virus on Wednesday night.
Mr Le Bars said other band members were getting tested and self-isolating but none of them had symptoms.
“The crowd is very local and very supportive. There is no blame game,” Mr Le Bars said.
He said he had planned to visit his children in Queensland over Christmas but had now had to cancel. His father has suffered a fall and he cannot help him.
“But everyone has their problems, it’s not just me or us,” he said.
He said Nothing Too Serious, a rock and roll covers band, had been so careful during the pandemic that they had not even been practising and had just started doing gigs again.
They have cancelled a planned gig for this Sunday at Avalon Bowlo.
Another one of Thursday’s new cases is understood to be a woman who works at the Pittwater Palms retirement home in Avalon.
Two other cases in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, from Avalon, were confirmed with the virus on Wednesday and a positive test for a southwest Sydney van driver who transported an airline crew to a quarantine hotel.
On Thursday, aged care homes in the Northern Beaches were told not to accept visitors until the source of new COVID cases is identified.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said that NSW Health will issue a directive to certain aged care homes to stop outside visits until there’s more certainty around the emerging cluster.
“At certain aged care facilities in the Northern Beaches we’re recommending no visitors until we identify the source of infection and feel more confident that we have it under control,” she said.
It comes as colleagues of a bus driver who is believed to have contracted COVID-19 while transporting an international airline crew have tested negative to coronavirus.
NSW Health said all colleagues of the man tested so far have returned negative results.
Those contacts were household contacts and work colleagues.
Meanwhile a call for Northern Beaches residents to come forward for testing has seen long queues for people to get swabbed.
A new pop-up clinic has been set up in Avalon, and will open for high volume testing at Midday, NSW Health said.
NSW Health is now investigating five locally acquired cases - including two cases in the Northern Beaches confirmed on Thursday morning, and two cases confirmed last night.
The cases from last night - a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s - live together.
Urgent genomic tests designed to identify the strain of their infection are set to be returned to NSW Health tonight.
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