Coronavirus: Nine ‘health hotel’ staff have tested positive since isolation overhaul

Nine staff members working at two quarantine hotels in Melbourne have been infected with coronavirus since the Andrews government’s program was overhauled.

Melbourne’s Brady Hotel on Tuesday. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Nine staff members working at two quarantine hotels in Melbourne have been infected with coronavirus since the Andrews government’s program was overhauled and largely shut down in late July, prompting questions over whether sufficient lessons have been learnt since two clusters among security guards sparked Victoria’s second wave.

The Andrews government said one staff member likely acquired the virus through an aged-care facility, another through public housing, and a third via a cluster among Victoria Police.

Maintaining that none of the nine “has been assessed as having acquired COVID-19 at a health hotel” and that at least seven of the cases had been “assessed as most likely occurring from community transmission”, a spokeswoman for the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Services said five of the nine had contact with known household cases, while the final case “was identified as having an unknown source and was considered to be likely community transmission in a hotspot area”.

“Three cases had contact with a known outbreak — one VicPol, one aged-care facility and one public housing,” she said.

The government finally confirmed the details on Tuesday, following days of questions from journalists and obfuscation from government media advisers after it was reported on Saturday that 12 WorkSafe reports had been made regarding infections in workers at the Brady Hotel and Grand Chancellor Hotel in Melbourne’s CBD.

While Victoria’s hotel quarantine program stopped taking new arrivals in June, the two hotels have since been involved in providing quarantine for vulnerable community members who cannot safely isolate at home, including residents of housing commission towers. The Grand Chancellor‘s involvement in the program ceased on September 14.

The scheme has been administered by DJCS and Alfred Health.

On Tuesday, the DJCS spokeswoman said nine people who worked at the “health hotels” had tested positive for COVID-19 since July 27.

“There are no active cases, with the last positive case in late ­August,” she said.

Of the nine staff, one was a Department of Health and Human Services staff member, another a Victoria Police member. “Neither has been assessed as having acquired COVID-19 at a health hotel,” the spokeswoman said.

Another two staff members who contracted the virus were Alfred Health staff, and the remaining five worked for cleaning and catering company Spotless.

“Acquisition has been assessed as most likely occurring from community transmission outside the health hotels,” the spokeswoman said of the Alfred Health and Spotless cases. How this assessment was made is not clear.

At least seven Spotless cleaning staff working at the Chadstone shopping centre in Melbourne’s southeast were linked to a coronavirus cluster in mid-August.

The confirmation of the nine cases follows a report inThe Saturday Paper that 12 government ­notifications had been made of positive cases among staff in the hotels, including private contractors, none of which had been publicly disclosed.