Victorian hotel quarantine worker tests positive to COVID
COVID testing sites are at capacity, while others have long queues, as thousands of Victorians rush to get tested after hotel worker tested positive.
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A COVID testing site has reached capacity and another has three hour wait times, after an Australian Open hotel worker tested positive and sent the state into a frenzy.
Springers Leisure Centre, in Keysborough, at the centre of the 14 exposure sites had a three hour wait at 2.30pm.
Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre was over capacity and not accepting further tests on Thursday.
A testing site at Golfers Drive in Chadstone had more than a two hour wait time, while punters had to wait for an hour at Monash Health, Swinburne University, Darebin Arts Centre, and Casey Fields.
Waits would only take 45 minutes at EACH at Ringwood Respiratory Clinic and 30 minutes at EACH in Lilydale, Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, Montague Street in South Melbourne.
The long testing wait times come as authorities continue to investigate how an Australian Open hotel quarantine worker caught COVID-19.
Thousands of Victorians and international tennis stars have since been isolated.
The news of the positive Victorian case has sent other states into panic mode, with South Australia ruling all travellers from Greater Melbourne be tested on days one, 5 and 12 after arriving.
The border remains open, as it does in Queensland and New South Wales.
STATE BORDERS REMAIN OPEN, DESPITE VIC CASE
Victorians will not be allowed in Western Australia from Friday.
After a quarantine hotel worker tested positive, WA announced it would “pause” its move to allow quarantine-free travel with Victoria, which was due to resume at midnight Friday.
Premier Mark McGowan said it was “possible” a hard border with Victoria would resume but that “hopefully the situation over there will remain under control”.
In the interim, Victorian travellers will continue to be required to self-quarantine for 14 days after arriving in WA while being tested on day 11.
South Australia has ruled travellers from Greater Melbourne to be COVID-19 tested on days one, five and 12 after a hotel quarantine worker in the Victorian capital contracted the virus.
Under the changes, those people entering SA will need to isolate after their first test until a negative result is received.
SA Premier Steven Marshall said the news of the Victorian case was “concerning” but clarified the border would remain open.
The news was different in Queensland, with chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young saying she wouldn’t hesitate to close the border to Melbourne if more community cases detected.
Dr Young said she was closely monitoring the situation in Victoria, but would not make any border changes just yet.
Victoria is not a hot spot for Queenslanders, but anyone in Queensland who has been in Melbourne since January 29 must get tested and self isolate until they test negative.
Anyone who had been to those Victorian exposure sites needed to quarantine at home for 14 days.
Queenslanders have been told to reconsider travel to Greater Melbourne, with health authorities poised to make changes if needed in the next 48 hours.
In New South Wales, all passengers arriving on flights from Melbourne were screened at Sydney Airport early Thursday morning. All incoming passengers also need to complete a declaration form.
NSW Health said anyone who had been in Melbourne since 30 January 2021 should check the Victorian health website to see they’d visited an exposure site.
If so, they should get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days regardless of the result.
NSW Health advised Victorians against travelling into the state if they had been to an exposure site.
FIRE STATIONS CLOSED FOR DEEP CLEAN
A CFA spokesman said all Noble Park firefighters who were contacts of the positive case were being isolated and buildings were being cleaned.
The Warrandyte, Wallan and Kilmore stations have also been closed for deep cleaning — but brigades were operational and responding to incidents.
District headquarters in Seymour, Dandenong and Shepparton were also closed for cleaning.
“Alternative arrangements have been made between neighbouring brigades to ensure community safety and emergency response is not compromised,” the spokesman said.
“Not all of the impacted stations have close contacts associated with the positive case. This is a cautious and safe approach to ensure the safety of our members and the community.”
MYSTERY REMAINS OVER HOW HOTEL WORKER CAUGHT VIRUS
Premier Daniel Andrews revealed airborne transmission of the virus could not be ruled out, but they were still working on how the 26-year-old was infected.
Contact tracers have identified 20 close primary contacts of the Noble Park worker, and had talked to 19 of them overnight.
Two family members had been tested and returned a negative result.
There are fears the man could have been infected by the UK super-strain, with genomic sequencing due back on Friday.
Mr Andrews said on Thursday hours of CCTV had been reviewed and found the man was a ‘model employee’.
“One thing is we can’t rule out is aerosol transmission, the airborne transmission of this. “That is challenging – very, very challenging.
“There is no obvious breach. There’s no problem where you can say, ‘Right. That’s probably where it happened’.
“So, we will have to wait until we get more of that contact tracing done, more of the test results.
“Then we will be able to narrow the field down.”
Mr Andrews said authorities were dealing with 600 work close contacts who had come into contact with the man over two weeks at the Grand Hyatt.
All 600 had been told to isolate and get tested.
More than 500 Australian Open players and staff, who were ‘casual contacts’, have also been told to get tested and isolate.
“I am asking all Victorians who have any symptoms, however mild, get tested and not delay, not waiting an hour, not waiting until tomorrow, but getting tested today is critically important,” Mr Andrews said.
“The early signs are many, many people have come to get tested, and I’m very grateful, deeply grateful, to every single one of those people.”
Fourteen exposure sites and times, mostly in Melbourne’s southeast, have been named.
Testing sites across the exposure areas are already experiencing extensive delays.
The wait time at Springers Leisure Centre in Keysborough is listed at 180 minutes, Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre 240 minutes, Chadstone 130 minutes, Swinburne University in Wantirna 120 minutes and Monash Health sites at Cranbourne and Dandenong more than 120 minutes.
Department of Health is urging those who want to be tested to consider alternate sites.
New testing sites are being set up in Noble Park, Monash Health in Clayton, in Brighton and the CBD.
Mr Andrews said: “We cannot have people stampeding through those bases, it must be done slowly, meticulously.
“I don’t want a testing site to become a super spreading site. It has to be done very carefully.”
The hallway monitor kept precise records of his whereabouts which has allowed health teams to narrow down exposure times.
He tested negative on January 29 but then became symptomatic.
COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said on Thursday: “Anybody who has been at those exposure sites and they’re very precise time windows, all those exposure sites should immediately isolate, get tested and remain isolated for 14 days.
“We will be in touch with you if you come forward, we are of course working with those venues to identify to follow up their contact tracing systems.
Regarding wait times at testing centres, he said: “I apologise … but it’s necessary to run this outbreak to ground.”
Deputy Chief Health Officer Professor Allen Cheng said authorities were taking a particularly “cautious approach … because we don’t know the source”.
He also flagged that with authorities unable to find transmission source the “concern is increasing” that the virus may have transmitted through the air, or on very fleeting contact.
The case has sparked a tightening of restrictions with masks now mandatory indoors including being worn by secondary school students, private indoor gatherings have been reduced to 15 people and the move to increase the cap on office workers from Monday has been halted.
South Australia announced their border will remain open to Victorians but those who are travelling from greater Melbourne will have to be tested on arrival and isolate until they get a negative result.
They must then be tested again on days five and 12.
Anyone who has been at the Grand Hyatt since January 28 and then travelled to South Australia will have to go into hotel quarantine.
On Thursday morning the Department of Health confirmed three new cases had been recorded in Victoria in the past 24 hours.
One was recorded as a locally acquired case – the Australian Open hotel quarantine worker – and two in hotel quarantine.
Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien called on the Victorian government to make a call on whether to cancel the Australian Open within 48 hours with concern the event cannot be guaranteed to go ahead.
“We don’t want to see a situation as we did with the Grand Prix, where crowds were literally turning up, only to be turned away,” he said.
“I think people are entitled to know what’s happening, and the government should be making their minds up in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
He also slammed Mr Andrews’ decision to keep the latest test result from the public for hours after the government and close contacts were informed.
The test result was received by health officials before 5pm Wednesday, Mr Andrews said he was notified at 6.30pm, but the health department only announced the case at 9pm, before an emergency press conference was called at 10.30pm.
‘MUTANT’ VIRAL SCARE IN HOTEL
The confirmed diagnosis of the worker came just hours after Police Minister Lisa Neville revealed a mutant strain had jumped between rooms at another hotel.
Public health officials are investigating how the virus spread, but have a “working assumption” it might have jumped rooms in the short time guests opened their door to collect food. It could have lingered in the air or been transferred on a hard surface.
A woman in her 60s arrived from Malaysia on January 11, and returned negative results on day 3 and 11 of quarantine at the Park Royal hotel at Melbourne Airport.
She extended her quarantine after her husband landed from overseas, during which time a family of five arrived from Nigeria and moved into the hotel room across the hall.
Members of the family tested positive to the UK strain on January 24, four days before the woman. Her husband returned negative tests.
Genetic results on Wednesday confirmed the woman’s strain was “identical” to the family’s.
A CCTV review found the family did not breach quarantine, and engineering reports confirmed no crossover of air via ventilation.
Officials investigating the spread were told by one person they recalled opening their door at the same time as someone in the room opposite.
Ms Neville said the infection was being treated as “hotel transmission” rather than an infection in the community.
“The viral load (of the family) was so high that just even opening the door to pick up your food has seen the virus get into the corridor,” she said.
Staff were already tested daily and had previously recorded negative results.
Ms Neville stressed it was unlikely the virus had breached quarantine but hundreds of staff and former guests were being tested to be safe.
“The public team have indicated that the risk to the community is very low but we’re taking no risks at all,” she said.
Authorities are now creating hotel “buffer” zones.
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