CHO Brett Sutton defends Epping North Woolworths contact tracing bungle

Brett Sutton has defended Victorian contact tracers’ latest bungle after the wrong supermarket was listed as an exposure site.

Brett Sutton has defended Victorian contact tracers’ latest bungle, saying there is “no evidence” linking the latest mistake to a fresh outbreak in Melbourne’s north.

The Victorian government was forced to admit its contact tracing team “fell down” again after it took almost two weeks to realise they had the wrong Woolworths store.

The health department originally listed Woolworths Epping as an exposure site after a Victorian man returned from hotel quarantine in South Australia and tested positive.

But it was Woolworths Epping North more than 4km away that the positive case actually visited, with the contact tracers taking almost two weeks to realise the bungle.

Health authorities were on Friday forced to issue an urgent alert for people who had visited the Epping North supermarket to get tested after discovering the error.

Late on Monday night, the Department of Health listed the Epping North Woolworths as a Tier 1 exposure site after a person with coronavirus attended the store on May 22.

Professor Sutton defended the state’s contact tracers as pressure mounted on Tuesday morning.

Woolworths in Epping North was the correct Covid exposure site. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

“There is no evidence at all at the moment that any of the five cases we have identified over the last 24 hours are linked to that particular site,” the chief health officer said.

“There are many other sites and potential casual contacts where transmission may have occurred.”

The store was closed for a deep-clean, with shoppers turned away at the entrance on Tuesday.

Prof Sutton said he only had praise for the work of contact tracers.

“I don’t have any criticism for the contact tracers in relation to this case at all,” he said.

“Information on that banking app is what was used initially. We went back on the basis of the wastewater testing to re-examine that.

“We have always done that where new information comes out.

“Now that we understand that a banking app can provide the wrong information on a potential site we will use other mechanisms to absolutely lock in exposure sites.”

Health Minister Martin Foley blamed the mistake on an electronic banking receipt that listed Epping Woolworths instead of Epping North.

Massive queues have formed outside Northern Health’s Epping testing site. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“As a result of the investigations once he turned positive and the production of his phone banking electronic receipt apps was clear it said Epping Woolworths,” he said at a Monday press conference, where four cases of community transmission were also revealed.

“Where our team fell down was they took it to be Epping Woolworths straight across the road from another primary exposure site, the Indian grocer.

“As a result of the wastewater positives last week, our team went back and checked with the gentleman again and quizzed him again, and that’s where despite the banking app receipt saying Epping Woolworths, it was in fact Epping North Woolworths.”

Mr Foley said all of the staff at Epping North Woolworths on that date had been tested and were negative.

He said the four new Covid cases announced on Monday also appear not to have visited any of the exposure sites from the previous case of a Wollert man who tested positive, and authorities were searching for a “missing link”.

The minister said the mistake was realised after wastewater testing detected traces of the virus in the area.

“As a result of the wastewater positives last week, our team went back and went through all of that again … it was in fact Epping North Woolworths,” Mr Foley said.

Health Minister Martin Foley admitted the bungle.

But Victorian Australian Medical Association president Julian Rait said it was surprising the exact store wasn’t “double-checked”.

“(My) banking app is not reliable when it comes to exactly the locations of those charges and costs that appear on it,” Dr Rait told the Today show.

”Any police investigator, for example, would know the need to verify information or get various different sources to confirm a site, and obviously the contact tracers have let us down in that instance.”

While authorities had not uncovered a link between the latest cases and the returned traveller or Woolworths exposure site, the opposition called for ministers to be sacked if the outbreak was connected to the bungle.

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said the government should be “doing the basics” to keep the public safe.

“Instead we’ve got the government making basic errors over the locations of supermarkets, and those basic errors are putting all of us at risk and that is just not acceptable,” Mr O’Brien said.

Former federal opposition leader Bill Shorten said he “certainly” hoped the previous contact tracing issues had been fixed.

“My reaction was ‘not again’,” he told Today.

“We are just getting businesses coming out of it, schools are back.

“For our kids and small businesses I hope we are on top of it. We will have to wait and see in the coming days.”