‘Extremely anxious’: Returned Australians ordered back into isolation

When Australians returning from overseas are released from hotel quarantine, many engage in a whirlwind of reunions with loved ones and other social activities, as they rediscover the relative freedoms life without community transmission affords.

But for 36 recently released travellers – and, at some point, four others still out of reach – it all came to a halt on Wednesday night, after it emerged two people staying on the 10th floor of George Street’s Mercure hotel had developed COVID-19 infections with identical genomic sequencing results, prompting an investigation into whether the virus was spreading within the hotel.

People who were housed at the Mercure on George Street have been ordered back into isolation.Credit: Google Maps

It is the second instance of possible COVID-19 transmission within a Sydney quarantine hotel to be reported within a week, after a suspected transmission between two people staying in adjoining rooms at the Adina hotel prompted a similar health response.

Brooke Thompson received a call on Wednesday night that she and her partner would need to re-enter self-isolation, after they were released from their fortnight stay on level 10 of the Mercure on Sunday morning.

Brooke Thompson was ordered back into isolation three days after she finished quarantine at the Mercure hotel.

Ms Thompson, who received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine before flying to Sydney from San Francisco, had three days of freedom catching up with friends and family she hadn’t seen in more than a year at restaurants and cafes.

The call made the pair “extremely anxious”, from initially thinking they would need to complete another 14 days in the hotel (they could self-isolate at home), to concern about whether they could have been exposed to COVID-19.

“We were obviously a bit worried about our friends, when we got out of quarantine we were ‘aggressively’ seeing people,” Ms Thompson said.

They received their tests on Thursday morning and are isolating at home in Sydney’s east.

After relative isolation in the US since last March, they will need to wait until Monday – 14 days since the last infectious person was transferred from the 10th floor of the hotel – to again experience being able to leave the house without a mask or go to a crowded pub.

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said investigations are continuing into the possible transmission of COVID-19 among returned travellers at the Mercure, with an environmental investigation being undertaken at the premises.

The three travellers on level 10 who prompted the investigation – two family members and another person who was staying in the room next door – have all tested positive to the B1.351 variant of COVID-19, also known as the South African strain.

Dr Chant said the three cases travelled on the same section of a plane from Malaysia into Sydney but returned negative day two tests and “weren’t infectious” while travelling.

The two members of the same family, who were staying in connecting rooms, tested positive on days seven and 10 of their stay. The third person, who was in a room next door to the connecting rooms, tested positive on day 12.

No flight crew on the plane have tested positive and “in-flight transmission” is less likely, Dr Chant said.

“We cannot rule out a common source, perhaps at the airport in Malaysia ... but what we are concerned about is whether there could have been transmission [in quarantine].”

Dr Chant said the Adina investigation had suggested the virus could have spread through the air in the corridor, but no conclusions have been made.

“A number of the variants of concerns are associated with higher transmissibility,” she said, adding this was why NSW had prioritised vaccinating quarantine workers and it was important those workers’ families also received their vaccinations.

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