Longer lockdown likely as alert raised over positive case who visited NSW

Victoria’s lockdown is expected to continue beyond its original Thursday deadline, government sources have indicated, as authorities reveal a positive Melbourne case travelled to NSW while potentially infectious.

Senior government ministers met on Tuesday night to receive a high-level briefing from health authorities about extending the stay-at-home orders in an attempt to combat an outbreak in which one in 10 positive cases have caught the virus from a stranger.

Melbourne in the middle of its fourth lockdown on June 1.Credit: Eddie Jim

Meanwhile, NSW Health issued a public health alert on Tuesday evening, saying it had been advised by Victoria’s Department of Health that a person who has tested positive for COVID-19 was in Jervis Bay, Goulburn, Hyams Beach and Vincentia while potentially infectious on May 23 and May 24.

The person drove back to Melbourne on May 24, reported the onset of symptoms on May 25 and tested positive for COVID-19 on May 31.

The alert was issued as six more sites were added to Victoria’s official exposure site list, taking the total to 351, including three BP truck stops along the Hume Freeway at Glenrowan, Euroa and Wallan on May 24.

Earlier a source close to the government, speaking on the condition of anonymity because a final decision had not yet been made, said Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton’s team was leaning strongly toward recommending a lockdown extension. A final call will be made on Wednesday.

Professor Sutton said the Indian variant of the virus was “an absolute beast” because “it has moved faster than any other strain we’ve dealt with”.

“We’re seeing transmission in settings and circumstances we’ve never seen before,” he said.

Three new cases were recorded on Tuesday and Health Minister Martin Foley took to referring to the cluster of cases as the “South Australian hotel outbreak” – a reference to the first case picking up the virus in an Adelaide quarantine hotel.

One cabinet minister said there was growing concern within the government about airborne spread. A new mystery case or any more cases of “fleeting transmission” – where the virus spreads between strangers at exposure sites – would inevitably trigger an extension of the lockdown, the minister said.

Another minister, speaking to The Age before the briefing, said an extended lockdown was likely.

Ministers were briefed on Tuesday evening about the options for the length of the extension – probably between three and seven days – and a final call will be ticked off on Wednesday morning in an effort to provide more certainty for families and businesses ahead of the weekend.

“This is stranger-to-stranger transmission,” COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said on Tuesday. “They don’t know each other’s names and that’s very different from where we’ve been before.

“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.”

Ahead of Tuesday night’s meeting, one state cabinet minister said further evidence of the virus transmitting through short interactions between strangers would “inevitably” see the lockdown extended, as would another mystery case.

“We can’t underestimate this challenge,” Professor Sutton said. “We are trying to do something nobody has had to do before – drive down the most challenging variant we’ve ever seen.“

MPs and mayors in regional Victoria have said their localities should be spared from any extension of the lockdown given there were no cases in those areas and no new exposure sites.

On Tuesday, public health authorities, who expressed a degree of confidence that the virus was not out of control, said they were worried by mounting evidence that it was spreading in places such as shopping centres and supermarkets.

Authorities believe, in part, this type of spread is being caused by the greater infectiousness of the Indian variant, which the World Health Organisation now calls the “Kappa” variant.

COVID-19 commander Jeroen Weimar.Credit: Joe Armao

In one of Tuesday’s cases, a man who shopped at a Port Melbourne strip near a workplace at the centre of the outbreak picked up the virus without knowingly interacting with anyone from the company.

This type of transmission – which in effect means anyone who travelled through an exposure site has the chance to become infected – occurred at the Telstra store in South Melbourne, a Mickleham display home, a grocer in Epping and a Craigieburn shopping centre.

To “drain the swamp” and ensure fleeting transmission did not occur at other large exposure sites, Mr Weimar urged anyone who attended the following places in the past one to two weeks to be tested immediately: Bay Street in Port Melbourne, Clarendon Street in South Melbourne, Craigieburn Central, Epping Plaza, Epping North Shopping Centre, and Broadway shopping strip in Reservoir.

It comes as another aged care facility was sent into lockdown on Tuesday night after a staff member was confirmed to be a close contact of a positive case.

Menarock Life aged care in Heathmont went into full lockdown in response to the linked cases, according to an all-staff email seen by The Age. It follows lockdowns at BlueCross Western Gardens aged care facility in Sunshine and Arcare Maidstone Aged Care Facility.

An extension of the lockdown will increase pressure on the Morrison government, which has faced days of criticism for refusing to provide economic support to Victorians and for its slow vaccine rollout.

One senior federal cabinet minister told The Age the decision not to provide financial support was based on the Victorian government’s initial estimate that the “circuit breaker” lockdown would only last for a week. They said an extension of the lockdown would probably prompt the federal government to reconsider its initial decision not to offer support, especially if it continued beyond next week.

On Tuesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg defended the government’s decision, telling Coalition MPs the state government had attempted a “desperate smear” over the matter.

“Victoria came to us and asked for assistance. Because it was a short lockdown it was at a scale that could be managed at a local level,” the Treasurer told Liberal and Nationals MPs, according to a Coalition spokesperson.

“They ran a pretty desperate attempt to smear us when in reality the numbers tell a very different story. Victoria’s received more on a per capita basis than any other state.”

The Treasurer’s remarks are one of the federal government’s few criticisms of the state leaders after acting Premier James Merlino accused Canberra of a “disgraceful” refusal to offer financial help.

The Victorian government will extend business support in the event of an extended lockdown, and will again push Canberra for assistance.

“They’ve abrogated their responsibilities on everything else in this pandemic, but they’ve got an obligation to come to the table here,” a source close to the Andrews government said.

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. That decision was previously endorsed by the national cabinet in late April, and the Andrews government wrote to private aged care homes shortly after offering worker vaccinations but received a muted response from homes.

None of the new community cases announced on Tuesday were connected with aged care settings, where four cases emerged in recent days, forcing several homes to close as aged care staff worked across multiple sites. All staff and residents at a Sunshine home where a COVID-positive employee worked tested negative.

About 43,000 vaccine doses were administered on Monday – the third time more than 40,000 people have received a shot in a single day. 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.

Eight people who should have been isolating at home on Tuesday were not at home when they were doorknocked by authorities.

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

Victorian authorities are still seeking the missing link between the Wollert man, who picked up the virus in Adelaide hotel quarantine on May 4 and flew to Melbourne that day, and “case five”, who became symptomatic almost two weeks later before unwittingly infecting other people.

Sites of concern

Anyone who has visited the following locations over past two weeks is urged to get tested if they show any symptoms:

• Craigieburn Central
• Bay and Graham Streets, Port Melbourne
• Clarendon St and South Melbourne Market, South Melbourne
• Pacific Epping (aka Epping Plaza) and Epping North Shopping Centre
• High St, Epping
• Station St, Lalor
• Broadway, Reservoir
• Footscray Market
• Dandenong Market
• Sanctuary Lakes Shopping Centre and Stockland Point Cook

For the first time, Mr Weimar detailed authorities’ working theory that the Wollert man passed the virus on to another person via fleeting contact at one of a handful of exposure sites from May 6 to May 9.

They include his train rides to and from the MCG on the night of May 7 to watch Richmond play Geelong, his dinner at the Curry Vault restaurant in the CBD on May 8 or his attendance at a 7-Eleven and grocery stores in the northern suburbs.

The government put the call out to footy attendees as well as scouring myki data and information at the restaurant such as bank statements. They identified “40-odd” attendees at the Curry Vault but, Mr Weimar said “there may well have been a 41st person we didn’t find” particularly in the absence of widespread QR code check-ins that night.

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.

With David Crowe, Peter de Kruijff and Rachael Dexter

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