Peculiar NSW COVID-19 case has no impact on quarantine duration at Howard Springs
THE number of days repatriated Australians spend in Darwin’s Howard Springs will not be altered, despite the peculiar case interstate of a man testing positive for COVID-19 days after leaving quarantine
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THE number of days repatriated Australians spend in Darwin’s Howard Springs will not be altered, despite the peculiar case of a man testing positive for COVID-19 two days after leaving hotel quarantine in Sydney.
The man from the Wollongong area left quarantine at the Sofitel Wentworth on February 2 and returned two negative tests during his two-week stay.
But after being contacted by health authorities as part of recently introduced voluntary “day 16” testing, the man returned a positive test on February 5.
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The NT government has not declared any NSW hot spots but did add three new Melbourne suburbs while revoking 10 others on Monday.
A spokeswoman for the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC), whose AUSMAT team runs the international wing of Howard Springs, said the organisation “continues to monitor the situation and regularly review infection prevention control measures”.
She also revealed repatriated Australians who go through quarantine at the Howard Springs facility technically undertake 15 days of quarantine as they come in to the centre on “day 0” and are not released until mid-day on “day 15”.
Repatriated Australians are tested on the day they get into the facility, again on day seven and once more on day 12.
Three children, who arrived via a repatriation flight from New Delhi, tested positive for COVID-19 at Howard Springs over the weekend.
The NCCTRC spokeswoman also reaffirmed staff members undergo daily coronavirus rapid antigen testing and do the “gold-standard” PCR test once a week.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday said it was “not the advice of medical experts” to extend the quarantine beyond 14 days, though it was an issue that was constantly reviewed.
“If they were to make recommendations along that line, then I’m sure that you would see the states and the Commonwealth move in that direction,” he said.
Australian National University epidemiologist Peter Collignon said the positive case in NSW could be the result of the virus sitting dormant in the body.
“So in this particular one it is very likely this person may have had an infection at some time when they were overseas for whatever reason not positive when in actual quarantine and it’s since come up positive,” he told Sky News.
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The NT government on Monday declared the Melbourne suburbs of Maidstone, Sunshine and Taylors Lakes as hot spots as of 3.30pm.
At the same time, the hot spot statuses of Melbourne, West Melbourne, Noble Park, Keysborough, Springvale, Brighton, Wheelers Hill, Clayton South, Heatherton and Moorabbin were revoked.
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