Coronavirus: Fateful mistake exposed in Victorian contact tracing

A crucial gap between the first Holiday Inn worker testing positive and a cafe employee starting work at Melbourne Airport has emerged.

Brunetti cafe at Melbourne Airport’s T4 terminal. Picture: Aaron Francis

A crucial gap between the first Holiday Inn worker testing positive and a cafe employee starting their shift at Melbourne Airport has emerged as a possible defect in the contact-tracing regime before Victoria was sent into lockdown.

The Victorian Health Department’s “third ring” contact-tracing approach should have meant all household contacts of hotel quarantine workers at the Holiday Inn were told to isolate and get tested as soon as possible after an authorised officer at the hotel tested positive to COVID-19 late on Sunday. Instead, household contacts were alerted to their risk of infection only on Tuesday, after one infected worker’s household member completed a shift at the Brunetti patisserie at Melbourne Airport’s Terminal Four.

Between 4.45am and 2pm on Tuesday, more than 3500 travellers and holiday-makers streamed through Terminal Four, possibly exposing themselves to the UK strain of COVID-19.

Later that day, the Brunetti worker was told to undergo testing. They took a test on Wednesday and returned a positive result on Thursday. By Friday night, health authorities across the nation were sent scrambling after about 2500 potentially exposed passengers had travelled to NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia.

Asked by The Weekend Australian why the Victorian Health Department did not ask household members of Holiday Inn workers to isolate until two days after the first infection was confirmed, Premier Daniel Andrews said: “Everyone is told to do what has to be done based on public health advice, based on an abundance of caution, and the information that is available.

“If there was a way to continue to be quite targeted and not go to these broader settings, albeit for a short period of time, then, of course, we would do that,” he said. “As for individual circumstances, I am happy to follow it up, but all my advice is that everybody has been treated with absolute precision, based on their exposure.”

The latest outbreak began when a family of three arrived in Melbourne from overseas to complete hotel quarantine at the Holiday Inn on February 3. One member of the family used a nebuliser, which turns medication into a fine mist that can be inhaled.

Health authorities theorise the virus escaped when the man exhaled. They believe the virus may have been attached to fine aerosolised particles that seeped into the hotel’s corridors. The man is being treated in intensive care.

On Sunday, an authorised officer in her 50s, who worked on the floor where the family stayed, tested positive with an identical strain of COVID-19.

The alarm bells were well and truly ringing two days later when a traveller staying across from the room where the nebuliser was used tested positive after leaving hotel quarantine.

On Tuesday, a food and beverage attendant working at hotel quarantine also tested positive.

While that woman underwent a COVID-19 test, a female member of her household went to work at Brunetti at the airport. This was the crucial gap in the contact-­tracing regime. If all the hotel quarantine workers and their household members had been told to get tested and isolate immediately after Sunday’s positive test, the airport worker would not have gone to work at Brunetti.

Later on Tuesday, the woman who worked at Brunetti and the food attendant’s husband were told to be tested for COVID-19 and isolate for 14 days. As the two underwent testing on Wednesday, another food and beverage attendant and a former Holiday Inn resident tested positive.

Late on Thursday, the Department of Health alerted the public to the positive case at Melbourne Airport as the cluster linked to hotel quarantine grew to 13 cases.

Victorian testing commander Jeroen Weimar said the Brunetti worker “did everything right”.

“They followed the instructions. They worked early in the morning of the ninth. We believe at that point they may well have been infectious, given she tested positive with a test taken on Wednesday, of which we got the result on Thursday.

“So our call to action is that anybody who was at Terminal 4 between 4:45am and 2pm on February 9 must isolate, you must get tested, you must contact us, and you must stay isolated for 14 days.”

A cleaner at Melbourne Airport also tested positive, which Victorian authorities confirmed on Friday.