Colorado cluster whispers: Is German couple patients zero?
Melbourne’s privileged and posh are still pointing fingers at each other following the infamous Colorado ski-trip cluster. But talk has now turned to a German couple who left the Aspen cocktail party early with a case of the sniffles.
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As coronavirus cells schussed down Aspen’s luxury ski slopes, stopping off in Toorak before slipping into Range Rovers to go down to Portsea, the search has been on for patient zero.
The privileged and the posh are still jabbing fingers at each other following the infamous Colorado ski trip cluster.
But who better to blame than the Germans?
Lieber Gott!
But more of that later.
It was just a month ago when jetsetters were waking up after tying one on at Andrew and Shadda Abercrombie’s annual cocktail party at their North of Nell hideaway.
The French stuff was in high demand as they rubbed shoulders at the March 2 soiree. Elbow bumps weren’t quite the thing then.
Many of the 40-odd guests were from Melbourne, with a few from Switzerland and Mexico. And then there was the German couple who left early with the sniffles.
Aspen in late February to early March is a must on our homegrown silvertail social calendars. As one put it to Page 13 the private schools are back and business is only just getting back into action.
The “charming old mining town” as one put it, was first established in the 1880s during the Colorado silver rush.
“Aspen is quintessentially an Australian destination”, another said.
“Buller babes,” as the preened and socially refreshed are called, swan about in the latest designer parkas. Their powerbroker partners and their iPhones are joined at the hip.
After a day on slopes the apres-ski mob head to Ajax Tavern at the Little Nell hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain.
Truffle fries and a wagyu double cheeseburger are worked off the next day but weight-conscious Buller babes might opt for a Moscow Mule cocktail instead.
Ten or more Melbourne high-flyers from the real estate and financial worlds have been flying to Aspen for 20 odd ears with their respective husbands and wives.
Some are members at the exclusive St Regis Aspen Resort and might knock back a McCallum’s single malt at the Mountain Bar and Lounge.
But it is the Abercrombies’ cocktail party at the former Victorian Liberal treasurer’s North of Nell condo which is the hot ticket.
A month later and many are wishing they didn’t go.
The Portsea pitchforks are out as the locals put up signs around town and outside the sailing club saying: “Should of stayed in Aspen.”
But as things turn nasty down on the Mornington Peninsula, several Aspen high-flyers have come forward to clear the air.
But even those down the Portsea pebbled agapantha lined driveways are wondering who might have been patient zero.
Scuttlebutt the daughter of Portsea parents at the party may have been the first to be infected after backpacking before turning up at Aspen turned out to be just that.
Someone who was there said: “The poor lass left the party early because it was a snoozefest of people all her parents’ age.”
But did she pick it up from the aforementioned Germans?
The latest word to come out of Aspen is that a German couple left the party “not feeling great” and “sniffling into their handkerchiefs.”
“The Germans left early,” one self-isolater in Portsea exclaimed this week.
“Three to four days later and the COVID-19 struck the lot.”
The coronavirus has been described as the greatest global disaster since World War II but as Noel Coward sang: “Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans.”
Even Basil Fawlty said: “Don’t mention the war!”
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