Coronavirus Australia: Family of four hotel quarantine ‘patients zero’, linked to thousands of virus cases: expert

A family of four, two of them COVID-positive when moved to hotel quarantine, has been linked to thousands of virus cases.

Staff at Rydges on Swanston hotel in Melbourne receive a delivery of PPE. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Geraghty

A family of four allowed outside their Rydges Hotel room for walks has been identified as the source of almost all the second-wave COVID-19 cases in Melbourne, an outbreak that has infected thousands and left the city in lockdown.

Within a week of the family’s arrival at the hotel on May 15, two security guards and an employee had contracted the coronavirus — before it spread to 17 people who worked in the building or were close contacts of those who did.

Across town, a man and a ­couple who returned to Australia on June 1 and June 11 respectively were identified as the source of a smaller infection that was quickly linked to 46 people before spreading across Melbourne, the Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry heard on Tuesday.

The inquiry, chaired by former Family Court judge Jennifer Coate, was told the Victorian government knew of the links back to guests and staff at the Rydges on May 30, with the ­Doherty Institute giving weekly genomic updates to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Premier Daniel Andrews on June 30 said Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton had only that day told him about the genomic testing linking the growing number of cases to the hotels.

He called an inquiry into the quarantine bungle that day.

On Tuesday, the inquiry heard from DHHS epidemiologist Charles Alpren, who said: “The department concluded that almost all cases of COVID-19 in the community (not acquired overseas) that have been sequenced among cases diagnosed after May 30, 2020, can be traced back to the transmission that started at the Rydges hotel in Swanston Street and the Stamford Plaza hotel.’’

Delivering the first official verdict about what started the second wave of infections in Victoria, Dr Alpren said the family of four did not leave the hotel during quarantine and were supervised when outside their room.

Transmission outside the room could not be ruled out, the inquiry heard. “I am satisfied that in my opinion it is likely that a high proportion, approximately 99 per cent of current cases of COVID-19 in Victoria have arisen from Rydges or Stamford,” Dr Alpren said.

“Since the time of the Stamford Hotel outbreak, only genomic sequences that cluster with Stamford, Rydges, or subsequent overseas returnees have been identified in Victoria.”

All of the travellers were in quarantine and there is no evidence the virus was transmitted by breaking quarantine.

In a written statement tabled with the inquiry, Dr Alpren said the family did not leave the hotel during quarantine and were supervised when outside their room. “There is suggestion that the family were approved to walk outside their room, during which they were accompanied by security guards,” he said.

“It is possible a transmission event or events happened at this point, however, cases were not identified that were involved in the environmental contamin­ation or the walk. Transmission could have occurred directly from the family to staff or through contamination with virus on surfaces in the hotel with which staff then had contact with.”

Victoria’s first wave of infections left 19 people dead — to May 30 — with 1645 infected. Since then, the second wave has infected more than 15,500.

More than 330 people have died, and Melbourne is under the toughest lockdown in the country, with a curfew in place between 8pm and 5am.

Dr Alpren said two members of the Rydges family tested positive to COVID-19 before being placed in the hotel on May 15. The inquiry heard the two remaining family members tested positive on May 17 an 18 and three staff members became symptomatic on May 25.

Between May 26 and June 18, 17 people linked to Rydges tested positive in Victoria and one household contact of a staff member tested positive in Queensland.

In his witness statement, Dr Alpren said genomic sequencing had been successfully performed on 4981 cases in Victoria, of which 3594 clustered genomically with Rydges associated genomic clusters. Of cases sequenced within the past month, 3183 of the 3234 cases were linked to the Rydges associated cluster.

“All other outbreaks active when cases from the Rydges outbreak first appeared have now ceased,” he said, adding that 90 per cent or more of the infections in Victoria could be traced to the Rydges Hotel.

Outbreaks at the Stamford Plaza are linked to a single man diagnosed with COVID-19 on June 4 and a couple diagnosed on 15 and 16 June. A staff member was diagnosed on June 14 and 46 people were epidemiologically linked to the outbreak by July 13.

The Victorian Premier was asked on Tuesday why he had not released genomic sequencing linking what he described on June 30 as “at least a significant proportion” of Victoria‘s coronavirus cases to breaches in his government’s hotel quarantine system.

The inquiry heard genomic sequencing by the Doherty Institute had been com­missioned by the DHHS; previously, the government said it belonged to the institute and could not be released. The inquiry will resume on Thursday.

The Rydges hotel in Swanston Street, Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty

Melbourne’s Stamford Plaza hotel. Picture: Wayne Taylor