How latest Covid outbreak spread across Melbourne

Just a few days ago Victoria was heading towards 90 days of no local cases, but now we know Covid was secretly seeding its way into the community — here’s how.

A Wollert man made headlines two weeks ago, after he caught COVID-19 in Adelaide’s Hotel Quarantine before coming home to regional Victoria.

But with no cases identified beyond his close contacts, authorities thought the May 11 outbreak had been contained.

But, unknown to health authorities, the virus was secretly spreading across the city until two days ago, on Monday, when a positive test in the City of Whittlesea exposed the northern suburbs cluster.

The cluster has grown to 15 people across an unknown number of households, with authorities refusing to rule out lockdowns.

Instead, they told the press conference the next 24 hours would be “critical” as they monitored a growing list of more than 50 exposure sites across 22 suburbs.

So how did it spread?

A Melbourne contracted Covid at the Playford Hotel in Adelaide. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Genomic sequencing shows the new outbreak matches the strain carried by the Wollert man, but authorities are still unsure how or where it could have been passed on and are searching for the missing link.

A man in his 30s from the city of Whittlesea was the first person to test positive on Monday, soon followed by his three family members, earning him the label Case 1.

He passed the virus onto relatives across three households: a man and a woman in their 70s, and a preschool-aged child, representing cases 2, 3 and 4.

But authorities now know he wasn’t the first person infected, and he instead caught Covid six days earlier at a business meeting on May 18.

The man who gave it to him, Case 5, first experienced symptoms on May 17 but got tested on Monday May 24.

The health department was notified the man, who is in 60s and can’t recall any movements overlapping with the Wollert man’s exposure sites, tested positive early Tuesday morning.

People line up in Epping to make sure they aren’t the mystery link in the latest outbreak. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

Four of his family contacts, also spread across different households, then tested positive that afternoon, becoming cases 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Authorities realised one of the cases had gone to work at a Port Melbourne finance firm while infectious and passed the virus onto five of their colleagues, cases 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15, whose results came back on Wednesday.

This was when contact tracers discovered the MCG was an exposure site, with one of the Port Melbourne workers attending the Sunday night match.

On Wednesday a close contact of Case 1, the man in his 30s, also tested positive, making them case 13.

But the mystery authorities are yet to solve is the missing link between Case 5 and the Wollert man.