Coronavirus Victoria: Brett Sutton feels ‘awful’ about hotel quarantine virus escape
Brett Sutton has defended Victoria’s contact tracing system but says there’s an element of the second wave he feels “awful” about.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton says he feels “awful” that coronavirus was able to escape from hotel quarantine and trigger Victoria’s second wave.
Prof Sutton made the frank admission during a rare one-on-one interview outside of the Premier’s daily media briefing with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on Tuesday morning.
Prof Sutton defended the state’s contact tracing system against attacks from the Federal Government but said he wished the system was “as robust then as it is now”.
The chief health officer maintained all of the initial virus cases contracted out of hotel quarantine were interviewed and their close contacts followed up.
“Who knows exactly what’s allowed this virus to escape hotel quarantine and get to the broader community beyond those who we knew were close contacts,” Prof Sutton said.
“I know the cases were interviewed, I know that their close contacts were all followed up and requested to quarantine, but it’s escaped, and it’s gone to places that are linked with genetics by those original cases, but we don’t have an epidemiological link.
“It clearly escaped from hotel quarantine, that’s been awful for me, it’s been awful for everyone, including reflecting on what we’re going through now is a consequence of that.
“But I can’t say it would have been stopped with a NSW system.”
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said on 3AW on Tuesday morning that if Victoria’s contact tracing was up to the level of that of NSW then cases from hotel quarantine could have been contained and the second wave possibly prevented.
But Prof Sutton said the Victorian and NSW contact tracing systems “look(ed) pretty similar” and elements such as Department of Health and Human Services and Australian Defence Force doorknock checks were unique to Victoria.
He said they also had data that showed the Victorian team was now almost hitting the benchmark of contacting all positive cases within 24 hours of being notified of a positive case.
“I think the quarantine inquiry is going to tell us what elements were avoidable, what we need to do differently to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but we absolutely don’t want it to that’s for sure,” Prof Sutton said.
Victoria recorded 55 new infections and eight new deaths on Tuesday, a slight rise after falling for four straight days.
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