Students at private Sydney school contract COVID, CBD outbreak grows

Ten new cases of COVID-19 were reported in NSW on Sunday, bringing the state’s total to almost 4,000.

Kincoppal - Rose Bay School will be closed from Monday.

One of Sydney’s top private schools has shuttered its doors after two students contracted coronavirus in connection with a growing outbreak in the CBD.

Kincoppal Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart in Sydney’s east will be closed on Monday after two pupils in Year 7 were diagnosed with coronavirus.

The infections at the school have been connected with a growing cluster in the Sydney CBD, which climbed by three cases to a total of 64 on Sunday.

Kincoppal school in Rose Bay. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Genomic sequencing has revealed the Sydney CBD outbreak – which started at the City Tattersalls gym on Pitt Street and was identified as a cluster on August 25 – is connected to cases linked with a series of funerals in Bankstown.

Authorities are yet to identify the individual who first introduced COVID-19 to the gym.

The latest information about the cluster was divulged in the most recent NSW COVID-19 weekly surveillance report.

“People attending City Tattersalls gym unknowingly spread the infection to other workplaces, businesses, homes and on public transport,” the report read.

Infectious people linked to the cluster also visited Double Bay Public School and Ryde High School and forced some students and staff to self quarantine.

The surveillance report also declared the Crossroads Hotel outbreak in Sydney’s southwest – which prompted fears of a second wave of coronavirus in the state in July – now has “no ongoing public health risk” and was “closed”.

Ten new COVID-19 cases were recorded across NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm on Saturday.

Of the latest infections, four were locally acquired and linked with a known cluster or source and two were under investigation. A student from Lidcombe Public School in the state’s west also returned a positive COVID test, with the source unknown.