7 people test positive at Sydney hotel to same COVID-19 strain

Seven people staying in quarantine at the one Sydney hotel have all tested positive to the same strain of COVID-19, prompting health authorities to take action.

Seven people staying in quarantine on the same floor of a Sydney hotel have all tested positive to the same strain of COVID-19.

NSW Health is now investigating the possibility of transmission within Adina Apartments Hotel at Sydney’s Town Hall of the single COVID-19 viral sequence.

All seven infected people are returned travellers accommodated on Adina Town Hall’s twelfth floor.

They belong to two different family groups who flew in to Sydney from different countries on separate days, but who have been staying in adjacent rooms.

Staff who worked on level 12 between April 8 and 11 are self isolating and, but authorities said the relevant security officers had each been vaccinated at least once.

Other returned travellers who stayed on the same floor have been retested and have returned negative results.

Seven people staying on the 12th floor of the Adina, Town Hall apartments (above) have tested positive to the same viral sequence of COVID-19. Picture: Jonathan Ng.

Dr Stephen Conaty said the seven infected travellers had been removed into Special Health Accommodation. Picture: NSW Health.

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In a video update on Saturday, Stephen Conaty, population health director of South Western Sydney Local Health District, said the cases were previously counted as overseas-acquired.

“This classification will be reviewed pending further investigation,” he said.

“The cases have been separately transferred to the Special Health Accommodation and present no risk of transmission to the community.

“Follow-up testing and further investigation is underway.”

Dr Conaty said the seven cases brought the total NSW cases to 5181 and no new locally acquired cases were recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday

More than 4000 vaccines were administered in that period, bringing the total number of vaccinations in NSW to 173,302.

NSW Health was treating 63 COVID-19 cases, two of whom were currently in intensive care.

NSW Health urged people with symptoms to get tested immediately, saying testing rates had fallen from 10,415 on the previous day to just 8763.