Coronavirus NSW: NSW Health refuses to use CCTV to trace COVID cases

NSW Health is refusing to use footage from licensed Sydney venues to trace the people who may have had contact with a COVID-19 carrier despite offers from the venues themselves.

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NSW Health is refusing to use closed circuit camera footage from licensed venues to trace the people who may have had contact with a COVID-19 carrier for “privacy reasons”.

The Daily Telegraph understands a number of venues have offered CCTV footage to health officials trying to track the movements of infectious people through licensed venues but have been knocked back.

A NSW Health spokeswoman said the details of potentially infected people were not given to the licensed venues to track them on CCTV for privacy reasons.

But a hospitality industry insider said: “It is staggering that the privacy of infected individuals is being put ahead of the health of the general community. These people have already willingly handed over their personal details for the purpose of contact tracing.”

A case of COVID-19 has been traced to The Star casino in Pyrmont after a patron visited on Saturday 4th July. Picture: Toby Zerna

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One venue, Sydney’s Star Casino, confirmed that it offered CCTV footage to NSW Health after a man in his 20s who tested positive had visited the premises a week earlier on July 4. But the offer was declined.

“We just want to help. We want to provide our guests and team members with a level of information they currently don’t have,” a spokesman for The Star said.

“Our sophisticated surveillance resources with around 3000 CCTV cameras can easily validate where this person went and who he came in close contact with, if anyone, while he was here.

“That visibility could answer a lot of questions and remove a lot of uncertainty for our people and the guests who were here on the night,” the spokesman said.

The casino being cleaned after it was exposed to COVID-19, although NSW Health has failed to use CCTV to find the person. Picture: Toby Zerna

Other premises contacted by The Daily Telegraph did not want to be identified but confirmed that they too had offered to speed up the contacting process through CCTV footage but the offer had been ignored by health officials.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said yesterday the incubation period of people at the Crossroads Hotel was as fast as one day.

“It gives you very little time for the contact tracers because you have got to get your cases diagnosed and then you have got to lock down those contacts,” she said.

Using the CCTV footage would show exactly who a person came into contact with during their time on the premises and speed up the tracing process.

NSW Health says it has a system to follow up on contact cases. Picture: Toby Zerna

A spokeswoman for NSW Health said it did not use CCTV footage because “NSW Health does not disclose private details as it is a breach of patient privacy.”

The spokeswoman said: “NSW Health has a rigorous system of contact tracing undertaken by expert teams of up to 150 people across NSW Health.

“We take proactive steps to contact all close contacts of a patient, to give them advice on isolation, symptoms to be aware of and their level of risk.

“While investigations are underway, NSW Health urges anyone who attended Star

City Casino on 4 July between 20:00‐ 22:30hrs to watch for respiratory symptoms or fever, and if they occur, isolate and get tested for COVID-19 right away,” she said.

Originally published as Coronavirus NSW: NSW Health refuses to use CCTV to trace COVID cases