‘Fleeting contact’: Health officials concerned by how little it takes to spread this virus

The strain of coronavirus that has sent Victoria into lockdown has been spreading in the community via only fleeting contact, the state’s COVID-19 response commander says.

Three more locally acquired cases of coronavirus were recorded overnight, bringing the total number in the outbreak to 54. None of the new cases are in aged care.

Jeroen Weimar said authorities were now concerned about examples of transmission with very little contact between cases.

“They’re brushing past each other in a small shop, they’re going around a display home … they’re looking at phones in a Telstra shop,” he said.

“They don’t know each other’s names, and that’s very different from where we’ve been before.

“We think it’s primarily a feature of the Indian variant which is that it is just that much more contagious.”

He said it was possible that this kind of contact had occurred at exposure sites throughout the city.

“It is entirely possible that we’ve seen this kind of fleeting contact in any of these locations, possibly others, so please use the exposure list as the guide,” he said.

“With previous variants, we are more used to transmission really occurring in the home, in the workplace or where people know each other [and are] really having a lot of contact, or those big social settings,” said Mr Weimar.

Because of these highly contagious individuals, Mr Weimar especially urged anyone who visited the following exposures in particular to get tested as soon as possible.

A general view of Bay Street in Port Melbourne, one of several shopping strips and centres flagged by health authorities. Credit: Getty Images

• Craigieburn Central
• Bay Street in Port Melbourne
• Clarendon Street in South Melbourne
• Pacific Epping, (also known as the Epping Plaza)
• Epping North Shopping Centre
• Broadway shopping strip in Reservoir

“We’re really keen to see people come forward who have been to some of these busier shopping centres where we have seen a number of positive cases move around a number of times,” Mr Weimar said.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton flagged an additional eight exposure site locations of concern in an email update on Tuesday afternoon.

• Graham Streets, Port Melbourne
• South Melbourne Market, South Melbourne
• High St, Epping
• Station St, Lalor
• Footscray Market
• Dandenong Market
• Sanctuary Lakes Shopping Centre and Stockland Point Cook

A mystery case of coronavirus that emerged in a Melbourne aged care worker on the weekend has now been genomically linked to the South Australian hotel quarantine outbreak.

Health Minister Martin Foley said the Arcare Maidstone Aged Care case had been linked to the South Australian case that leaked out of hotel quarantine and seeded Victoria’s most recent outbreak.

“The genomic sequencing has confirmed that that case is directly linked to the South Australian hotel outbreak,” Mr Foley said.

“That is at least confirming in our mind that this is over one related cluster, from the South Australian hotel.

At the last count on Monday, there were four cases connected with aged care; two staff members, one resident and one son of a staff member.

Several homes were forced to close, as aged care staff had again been allowed to work across multiple sites.

The state government announced on Tuesday that all aged care and disability workers will be able to jump the queue to access a COVID-19 jab at all Victorian vaccination centres.

None of the new community cases are connected to aged care. Several homes were forced to close, as aged care staff had again been allowed to work across multiple sites.

Mr Foley said all staff and residents at Blue Cross Sunshine aged care had tested negative.

He said some aged care facilities remain under strict infection and prevention measures.

The Health Department’s official tally of new cases for the past day is nine because it contains six cases that the government reported on Monday, as those results came back after midnight yesterday.

There are now more than 340 exposure sites listed by health authorities and the additions are increasingly a list of places people are permitted to go during lockdown: supermarkets and grocery stores.

There are several sites at Brimbank Shopping Centre and some in South Melbourne, including at the South Melbourne Market.

A statement from the Chief Health Officer, released on Monday evening, said there was a continued focus on small community grocery stores across Melbourne’s suburbs.

“Anyone who has been to a community or market grocery store in the last two weeks is urged to visit the exposure sites website,” the statement said.

An increasing number of Victoria’s mass vaccination centres are offering Pfizer shots for people aged in their 40s who walk in off the street.

Meanwhile, of the 723 Victorian addresses visited by authorities yesterday to check on people who should be isolating as primary and secondary contacts of COVID-19 cases, eight people could not be found.

Mr Weimar said those eight individuals were “of real concern” and were being “followed up through our enforcement division”.

Victorian authorised officers and Australian Defence Force personnel are carrying out the doorknocking checks. Those caught breaching the order to isolate can be fined for not staying home but only after a second breach, according to the government guidelines.

“A fine of $4957 can be issued to a person found to have breached the requirement to isolate or quarantine for a second or subsequent time,” the Victorian government’s COVID-19 website reads.

Late on Tuesday, West Australian health authorities revealed COVID-19 had spread within one of the state’s quarantine hotels.

WA’s Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson said genomic sequencing had shown a positive case from May 23, a man who had come from Colombia, was linked to a second man staying in a neighbouring room at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Perth, who tested positive on May 31.

Authorities said they were confident in the steps they have taken to prevent community spread.

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With Peter de Kruijff