Melbourne lockdown extended as authorities track bizarre transmission

Victoria’s chief health officer has revealed a bizarre case that became infected in a way not seen before, calling the variant an “absolute beast”.

Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton says people are becoming infected with Covid-19 in ways we have not seen before.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday where it was announced the state’s seven-day lockdown would continue for another week, Professor Sutton said a person was infected at an indoor enclosed space “two hours after an infectious case had left”.

“(It) was therefore a substantial period of time but they had left two hours before the next exposed individual came in who has become a case,” he said.

“That’s in the kind of measles category of infectiousness. Probably relates to an unventilated setting where someone spent a great deal of time but to come in two hours later and be infected. It may be on surfaces but it could absolutely be through airborne transmission as well because of that indoor setting.”

RELATED: Victoria extends lockdown for seven days

Professor Sutton said there was another case where the virus had showed up “in places where normally it would be likely”.

“So the Brighton Beach Hotel, that was an outdoor dining setting, well ventilated, you wouldn’t expect transmission to occur,” he said.

“We still had it as an exposure site, we still informed people to test and isolate until returning a negative, but in fact all of those people will need to be in quarantine because transmission has occurred there.

“That’s not something that we routinely see and we didn’t routinely see it in 2020, but we have to bear in mind that all the variants of concern now are really a step up to some degree.

“This variant is not the most infectious, but it is more infectious than anything we saw in the beginning and middle of 2020, so we have to bear that in mind.”

He said at least one in 10 current cases in the 60-case cluster “caught this virus in those casual contact settings” outside the workplace or the family home.

Yesterday, Victorian authorities say people are becoming infected with covid after just “brushing past” strangers with the virus.

The Victorian Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, discusses the extended lockdown in Melbourne. Picture : NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

Testing Commander Jeroen Weimar said at least four of the state’s 54 locally transmitted cases have come from “fleeting” contact between Victorians.

“What we’re seeing now is people are brushing past each other in a small shop, they are going to a display home, they are looking at photos in a Telstra shop,” he said.

“This is relatively speaking, relatively fleeting. They do not know each other’s names, and that is very different from what we have been before.

“This is stranger to stranger transmission.”

He said the ease with which the virus is spreading may be a feature of the Indian variant.

“We are used with previous variants, we are more used to transmission occurring in the home, in the workplace, where people know each other already, not all of those big social settings,” he said.

“We have seen transmission in these places with very fleeting contact. We have transmission in places like the Telstra store in South Melbourne, JMD Grocers, the display home we talked about a few days ago, I’d add Craigieburn Central shopping centre.

“They are all examples of transmission with very limited contact. With previous variants, we are more used to transmission occurring in the home, in the workplace, where people know each other already, not at all of those big social settings. These are quite different.”

Wednesday’s six cases include a person who worked at Stratton Finance in Port Melbourne, a person who visited the Brighton Beach Hotel and four family members who travelled to Jervis Bay on the NSW south coast.

Victoria’s lockdown was extended until next Thursday but some restrictions have been eased.

People living in greater Melbourne can now travel 10km from their home instead of 5km and students in years 11 and 12 can return to face-to-face learning.

Almost all restrictions in regional Victoria will be eased at 11.59pm tomorrow night.