Coronavirus Australia: Victoria’s Covid cluster grows to nine cases

Victoria has been forced to reintroduce Covid-19 restrictions across Melbourne after a cluster of cases in the city’s northern suburbs grew to nine infections.

Anniina Pitkaenen receives a Covid jab at a mass vaccination centre at the Melbourne Showgrounds on Tuesday. Picture: Aaron Francis

Victoria has been forced to reintroduce Covid-19 restrictions across Melbourne after a cluster of cases in the city’s northern suburbs grew to nine infections.

Genomic testing has confirmed the cases were linked to a man who tested positive after he had returned to Victoria from quarantining in an Adelaide hotel.

At the centre of the cluster is a man in his 60s – the fifth case – who became symptomatic last Monday but was only tested a week later after being identified as a close contact of a previous case.

Victorian health officials say there could be more cases linked to the traveller who had returned from Adelaide, with the missing link between the man and the rest of the infections not yet found.

“It’s possible there’s another missing link,” Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said.

“If there is an identified crossover with an exposure site for the (case from Adelaide), that would be very reassuring, but there might be other cases out there.”

Among the new restrictions announced by Acting Premier James Merlino is a limit of five visitors to the family home. Outdoor gatherings are limited to 30 people, with masks mandatory indoors. However, there has been no change to rules governing restaurants, cafes and other venues.

Mr Merlino has also flagged the possible expansion of vaccinations beyond those already eligible and said that decision “comes down to what confidence we have in supply”. “There are millions of Victorians eligible to be vaccinated, people should not wait,” Mr Merlino said as the government urged anyone eligible not to delay their immunisations.

Allison Lamb, a nurse unit manager at the Melbourne Showgrounds mass vaccine hub, said she expected a record number of vaccinations on Tuesday.

“We will definitely break over 700. At the same time this morning, we doubled the numbers that we did yesterday,” Ms Lamb said.

“We are happy to see that in light of what‘s going on out in the community that people are actually seeing the need to come and get vaccinated.”

About 500m away Victorians waiting to get tested at the showgrounds clinic had to wait in a three-hour queue. Nurse unit manager of the clinic Debra Sloggett said 652 people had been tested by 2pm compared with fewer than 300 people last week.

The AFL has paused ticket sales for Victorian games scheduled for the weekend.

Western Australia has also placed new restrictions on arrivals from the state. All travellers must be tested for Covid-19 and will have to quarantine until a negative result is ¬returned.

Quarantine-free travel between Victoria and New Zealand is to also be paused – for at least 72 hours – authorities in Wellington said on Tuesday.

South Australia, which will stop people who attended exposure sites from entering, has yet to release a report into how the man quarantining in Adelaide had contracted Covid-19.

Victorians have rushed to be tested, with nearly 15,000 results received in the past 24 hours, Health Department figures revealed. It led to long waits at some centres across Melbourne, including at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital and Victoria University.

Julian Rait, the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association, said this outbreak was a “stark reminder” that anyone who is eligible to be vaccinated should.

The genomic sequencing has also confirmed that cases in the cluster are the highly infectious Indian B. 1.617 strain of the virus.

Professor Sutton denied the misidentification of a supermarket as an exposure site may have contributed to the cluster’s spread.

Members of the public line up at a Covid-19 mass vaccination centre at the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings on Tuesday. Picture: Aaron Francis

On Friday, the Health Department disclosed it had wrongly declared the Epping Woolworths as an exposure site visited by the Adelaide returnee on May 8. In fact, the man had visited the Epping North Woolworths, with the department blaming electronic banking records and the supermarket’s proximity to a spice shop the man had visited for the mix-up.

While the first case detected on Monday also visited Epping North Woolworths while likely infectious on Saturday May 22, he is believed to have contracted the virus from the man in his 60s, with Professor Sutton saying there was “no evidence” that the supermarket was a transmission site.

Professor Sutton said he was more concerned about a journey the man had taken on May 7 from the outer northern suburb of Craigieburn in and out of the CBD on a train crowded with AFL fans.

“There might still be cases out there from that train trip. They’re probably not infectious, but it would be great to identify them if they’re a missing link,” he said.

Among the exposure sites visited by members of the cluster are the Bamboo House restaurant in Chinatown, the Clifton Hill McDonald’s, the Highpoint shopping centre, a stadium in Brunswick, a swim school in Bundoora, a soccer field and service station in Reservoir and shops in Epping.