Sydney movers frustrate Victorian Covid-19 contact tracers

Victoria’s Covid-19 logistics chief says Sydney removalists have not been forthcoming with information about their trip to Melbourne, but another man who broke home quarantine rules won’t be punished.

Victorian Covid-19 logistics chief Jeroen Weimar. Picture: Ian Currie

Victoria’s Covid-19 logistics chief says three Sydney removalists who travelled to Melbourne and ­Adelaide before two of them tested positive for coronavirus are “not being as forthcoming” with information as health authorities would like.

Jeroen Weimar also said a ­coronavirus-positive man who confessed to breaching home quarantine rules by visiting a supermarket and service station would not be punished because he and his family had otherwise “done the right thing”.

Victorian health authorities have isolated more than 300 close contacts – including the residents of 78 apartments in a complex in Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s west – since news broke on Monday of the state’s two latest coronavirus incursions from NSW.

The incursions concern the three removalists and a separate family of four that returned last week from NSW.

The removalists travelled from Sydney to a property in Craigieburn, in Melbourne’s outer north, to deliver furniture to a family of five, arriving at 9.30am last Thursday.

At 1pm, the removalists arrived at the Ariele apartment complex in Maribyrnong, in Melbourne’s west, to retrieve furniture from another family.

Both the Craigieburn and ­Maribyrnong families have so far tested negative for coronavirus, and all have been in isolation since Monday. From 8,30pm on Monday, the entire Ariele apartment complex was locked down.

After leaving Maribyrnong on Thursday, the removalists stopped at the Mobil service station at Ballan, 70km west of ­Melbourne, using the shower facilities and dining at the adjacent McDonald’s restaurant.

They arrived in Adelaide in the early hours of Friday and unloaded furniture before one of them received a call from NSW contact tracers advising that he was a close contact of a positive coronavirus case. The removalist was tested on his return to Sydney on Saturday, and was given a positive result on Sunday.

Mr Weimar said a second removalist had tested positive on Monday and the third was symptomatic. Victorian health authorities have since been conducting interviews with all three men and their employer.

“It is an ongoing process. We’re getting information. It is taking a long time to get information and the information we get is requiring a lot of verification,” he said on Tuesday.

“In every single contact tracing interview we do, fulsome early information helps us move really quickly. That is not the case in this instance. They’re not being as forthcoming, or their recollection is not as accurate, as I would like.”

In contrast, Mr Weimar said authorities would not punish a member of a family of four from the Hume local government area in Melbourne’s outer north, despite the man visiting a Coles in Craigieburn on Saturday and a service station in Broadmeadows on Sunday, when he was supposed to be quarantining at home.

The man’s female partner and two children flew back from Sydney July 4, before the man drove back on July 8.

All the family was tested on ­return to Victoria and initially had negative test results.

“Not only did they come in on the right red zone permits, not only did they get tested when they arrived within the first three days, crucially, they got tested again when they became symptomatic and have been very fulsome and open to us about any movements that they’ve had,” Mr Weimar said.