Authorities urged to reassess hotel quarantine ventilation following NSW transmission
Authorities are being urged to reassess the ventilation of current hotel quarantine facilities, following another case of COVID-19 transmission between returned travellers in Sydney.
Authorities are being urged to reassess the ventilation of hotel quarantine facilities, after a case of COVID-19 was transmitted between returned travellers in NSW.
NSW Health is investigating how three people from the same family acquired the virus while isolating at the Adina Apartment Hotel in Town Hall, Sydney.
While no community cases were reported for the state on Sunday, the three infected family members were reclassified as locally transmitted cases after it was revealed they caught the virus from a family member staying in the adjacent room.
The families arrived from different countries and on different days but have returned positive tests with the same viral sequence. This is not the first time transmission between guests in hotel quarantine has occurred in Australia.
In February, after a guest in Victoria passed on COVID-19 to other people at the Holiday Inn while using a nebuliser, the state was forced to snap into a five-day lockdown.
In Queensland, the more contagious UK variant spread from returned travellers at the Brisbane Hotel Grand Chancellor to a hotel cleaner in January, sparking a three-day lockdown.
In March, a guest from the same hotel passed the virus to a doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, which forced the hospital into lockdown.
Epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre said the evidence was “overwhelming” that cases in hotel quarantine likely spread through airborne transmission.
“COVID is spread through airborne routes, so if you don’t address ventilation, you can still get transmission,” she said.
“There have been studies that show that, for example, the air can flow under the door into the corridors ... and corridors are notoriously poorly ventilated in hotels.”
Professor MacIntyre said state authorities must address the current quarantine program and select hotels based on the adequacy of the ventilation.
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