Coronavirus: Brendan Murphy retracts ‘dinner party’ link to Tasmanian cluster as Peter Gutwein calls for police probe

Tasmanian Premier called for police probe after Brendan Murphy linked the Burnie virus cluster with a medical staff dinner party.

Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Brendan Murphy has walked back statements he made on Tuesday morning that blamed an outbreak of coronavirus that closed two Tasmanian hospitals on an “illegal dinner party” hosted by healthcare workers.

After Dr Murphy’s claims to a New Zealand parliamentary committee, Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein called on police to investigate the allegations, despite stressing they were based on “rumour.”

Over 5,000 Tasmanians have been placed in quarantine and the North West Regional and Private Hospitals in Burnie were closed by the state government for a deep clean after an outbreak of coronavirus at the facilities spread to at least sixty other people.

The region has been placed in lockdown and thousands of healthcare workers and their families have been placed in self-isolation.

On Tuesday morning Dr Murphy told his NZ counterparts that 49 of these cases were linked to an “illegal dinner party” hosted by healthcare workers in the region.

In video footage broadcast in New Zealand, Dr Murphy told the Epidemic Response Committee, a select committee set up to run in the place of parliament: “You have to be prepared for further outbreaks. We thought we were doing really well in the last week and then we had a cluster of 49 cases in a hospital in Tasmania.

“But most of them went to an illegal dinner party of medical workers.”

Just hours later he issued a retraction, saying there was no confirmation that such an event took place.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein. Picture Chris Kidd

“This morning in discussions with a New Zealand parliamentary committee, I referred to the suggestion that a dinner party may have been the source of some of the transmission in the North West Tasmania cluster of cases,” the statement read.

“Whilst this possibility had previously been mentioned to me following initial investigations, I am now informed that the contact tracing has not confirmed that such a dinner party occurred.”

Health workers transfer a patient from the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie to the Mersey Community Hospital in Latrobe. Picture: Patrick Gee.

Earlier, Mr Gutwein said that contact tracing had not identified any such dinner party but police would investigate the “serious” allegation.

“I want to deal with one matter that has made the media this morning,” the Premier said.

“I spoke to Brendan Murphy, a short while ago. To be frank, Brendan was commenting on a rumour,” he said. “At this stage … our contact tracing has not identified a dinner party of health workers.

“I’ve asked the Tasmania Police to investigate this matter, and that will be started today,” he said.

The dinner party link has been circulating on social media and Mr Gutwein denied the allegations at a press conference this week.

Mr Gutwein on Tuesday reported six new COVID-19 cases. He said all of them were in the northwest and all related to the North West Regional Hospital outbreak. There are now 150 confirmed cases in the state.

Mr Gutwein told reporters on Monday he had to take the “extreme measure” of a two-week lockdown of the North West Regional Hospital and North West Private Hospital after more than 40 healthcare workers tested positive to COVID-19.

The cluster of cases linked with the northwest region outbreak is now up to 66.

“This is serious and we need to get on top of it and that is why we have taken the steps that we have to initially take over the North West Private Hospital,” he said.

“To then move to close both the North West Private and the North West Regional Hospital, to put between 4,000 and 5,000 people into quarantine on the northwest coast.”

Australian Medical Assistance Teams and the Australian Defence Force are on their way to Tasmania to help set up a makeshift hospital in Burnie to help curb the spread of the virus.