Hotel CCTV can’t solve COVID infection mystery

A delay in the onset of symptoms in Victoria’s infected hotel worker has puzzled investigators, with security footage failing to reveal how he caught COVID.

Investigators are yet to determine how exactly a hotel worker became infected. Picture: Getty images

Days of security footage from inside Victoria’s hotel quarantine system has failed to reveal how a worker became infected with coronavirus.

Attention is now turning to the air the 26-year-old breathed while working at the Grand Hyatt, amid heightened concerns over how easily new COVID-19 mutations may pass through aerosol transmission.

It is hoped that the results of genetic sequencing from the Noble Park man’s infection, due Friday, will identify who he caught coronavirus from.

Investigators believe he likely caught it from one of the six coronavirus-positive Australian Open guests who quarantined in the Grand Hyatt, including at least four confirmed to have the UK strain.

But a delay in his onset of symptoms after possible exposure to the positive cases has puzzled them.

The last of those cases were moved out of the Grand Hyatt on January 22 — a week before the worker’s final shift, during which he tested negative, and 12 days before he returned a positive result.

Premier Daniel Andrews described the hotel worker as a model employee. Picture: Getty

“It’s probably not rocket science to say that he has probably caught it from one of the cases,” Deputy Chief Health Officer professor Allen Cheng said.

“But the timing doesn’t quite line up so we are investigating other possibilities.”

Burnet Institute epidemiologist Michael Toole described the worker as an “unusual case”.

“Seven days (is) quite a long time to have not been infected but maybe he was an unusual case, in that he had a longer incubation period than usual,” he told the ABC.

The Herald Sun understands exhaustive reviews of CCTV footage and other evidence from inside the quarantine hotel has raised doubts the virus could have been passed directly from an infected guest to the worker or by touching a common surface in the hallways he monitored, such as food trays.

Prof Cheng said it was becoming increasingly likely airborne transmission was occurring.

“We have always recognised, particularly in Victoria, that airborne transmission is possible. With these new variances our concern has increased,” he said.

A female living with the man in Noble Park, as well as another close family member, have both tested negative for the virus.

Of 17 close contacts linked to the COVID-positive hotel quarantine worker, 15 have now tested negative and the other two were expected to have their results by Friday.

The man is a CFA volunteer who attended a social event at Noble Club, prompting Noble Park fire station to be closed for cleaning and all close contacts isolated and sent for testing.

The CFA said its Warrandyte, Wallan and Kilmore stations have also been closed for deep cleaning but remained operational.

The worker had a busy weekend, hitting up a bottle shop and kebab store after finishing his shift Friday night, followed by a CFA event and driving range on Saturday, a cafe, two Kmarts and Coles on Sunday and six locations Monday, with shopping, a golf store and Bunnings.

A total 14 sites pinballing across Melbourne and the southeastern suburbs were visited over four days, and are now exposure sites.

Premier Daniel Andrews said there was so far no “definitive answer” for how the worker was infected, though security footage raised questions over airborne transmission.

“It’s fair to say that this person has been a model employee and has done everything that he should do, whether it’s dogging and donning PPE, all the other protocols, all the other rules that are followed,” Mr Andrews said.

“We could find no problem, no breach of protocol, in terms of his employment.

“These mutant strains of this virus are and even greater challenge than even all the things we faced through 2020.

“One of the things we can’t rule out is that there is aerosol transmission – so airborne transmission of this – that is very, very challenging.

“There is no obvious breach. There is no problem where we can say ‘that’s probably where it happened’.”

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