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Box Hill Hospital nurse sparked northern suburbs outbreak
By Melissa Cunningham
A nurse infected with coronavirus while working at an eastern Melbourne hospital transmitted COVID-19 to members of her household in the city's north, sparking a cluster that delayed the easing of restrictions.
The nurse contracted the virus from a patient while working in the COVID-19 ward at Box Hill Hospital.
A coronavirus outbreak in Melbourne’s northern suburbs that has stalled Victoria’s reopening was triggered by a hospital worker who contracted the virus from a patient in Box Hill Hospital’s COVID-19 ward.Credit: Michael Clayton-Jones
The nurse then brought the virus home to their home in Heidelberg Heights, in Melbourne's north, and infected seven others, health sources with knowledge of the case say.
Members of that household then inadvertently spread the virus to East Preston Islamic College, Croxton Special School at Northcote.
The state government has confirmed the nurse was patient zero for the northern suburbs cluster and released a map of the links between 11 affected households. Among the households there are 39 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 25 close contacts.
The outbreak has also been traced to infections at the Regis Macleod aged care facility in Melbourne's north-east, with two employees there testing positive. Extensive testing at the aged care home in recent days has found no further infections.
The outbreak at Box Hill Hospital was seeded earlier this month after a patient infected two staff members who worked while infectious on a different ward, transmitting the virus to the nurse and another patient.
Further details of the outbreak emerged after Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday delayed announcements on easing of restrictions while health authorities awaited the results of thousands of swabs, prompting a storm of criticism led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
More than 5000 tests results from Melbourne's northern suburbs have come back negative in the past 48 hours, with Mr Andrews declaring on Monday afternoon that the northern suburbs outbreak was under control, and that it was now safe for retail and hospitality to reopen from Wednesday.
“It was worth waiting to be absolutely confident to be sure that our team had their arms around those positive cases and fundamental control of the outbreak and that is exactly what these numbers show us,” Mr Andrews said.
“We have results for the 2100 people who got tested yesterday and there are hundreds more samples going through the labs over the course of the day. Their commitment is a massive contribution to identifying what we hope are the very few remaining cases of COVID-19 in Melbourne."
Victoria's commander of testing and community engagement, Jeroen Weimar, said there was evidence households which had tested positive to COVID-19 in the city's northern suburbs had breached quarantine and visited other households, fanning a spread of the virus.
"Absolutely there is evidence of some contact between households post isolation quarantine," he said.
More than 15,000 swabs have been taken across the five northern local government areas of Hume, Moreland, Banyule, Darebin and Nillumbik since October 20 to test the level of community transmission.
The family at the centre of the northern suburbs cluster said on Sunday that the Department of Health and Human Services had cleared them to leave their homes two days before one of their children unwittingly attended school while infectious, and did not expressly warn that the grade five pupil should remain in isolation.
The family, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons, have expressed frustration at DHHS, saying the department had spread confusion and misinformation about their circumstances and refused to accept responsibility for mishandling their case.
Mr Weimar disputed the family's account on Monday and move to defend the public health response.
"We do not accept that in this case or in any other case that we have not been clear about our expectations of people," he said.
"We absolutely accept there may have been a misunderstanding, but the information we provided [about isolation and quarantine] is accurate and to the point. I am not going to sit here and say we are not explicitly clear about what is happening with individual members of a household."
Anyone with symptoms or who is an identified close contact is being urged to get tested, with testing sites available across the northern suburbs, including at schools, parks, shopping precincts and in traditional health settings.
A spokesman for Eastern Health, which oversees Box Hill Hospital, said the nurse was immediately placed in the Hotels for Heroes program after testing positive, to isolate from immediate family.
"However, there appears to have been an asymptomatic period of infection within this household before the health care worker tested positive to COVID-19," the spokesman said.
"This is an incredibly infectious disease and we continue to focus on the health and safety of our staff and patients."
There are currently 39 active cases linked to the outbreak, including cases associated with East Preston Islamic College and Croxton Special School.
For the first time since June 9, no new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Victoria overnight to Monday, while Melbourne's 14-day average has dropped to just 3.6 new cases a day.
Staff working on a ward at Box Hill Hospital were told they were not allowed to use highly protective N95 masks as a precaution against the disease, The Age revealed earlier this month.
A leaked email exchange showed the hospital's supply of N95 masks had been reserved for those working with the highest-risk patients, and others were not permitted to wear them "even if they buy one".