Victoria coronavirus outbreak: Delta dawned from yet another hotel breach
Victoria’s Delta variant coronavirus outbreak has been linked to another breach in hotel quarantine.
Victoria’s Delta variant coronavirus outbreak has been linked to another breach in hotel quarantine, representing the sixth time the virus has escaped one of the state’s quarantine hotels, and the 22nd such breach nationwide.
News that genomic sequencing had connected the coronavirus case of a returned Sri Lankan traveller with that of a cluster of 15 cases centred on west Melbourne came six days after The Australian revealed that residents at a CBD apartment complex were gravely concerned about interactions with staff and medical waste at the Novotel/Ibis Melbourne Central quarantine hotel, where the traveller stayed overnight while highly infectious in early May.
Despite confirmation of the genomic link – which has prompted a search for the missing links between the traveller and the west Melbourne cluster – Victorian health authorities indicated they remained on track to ease out of Melbourne’s lockdown from Thursday night as planned, after only two new cases were reported on Tuesday, both linked to previously known cases.
Amid ongoing mystery about the source of the west Melbourne outbreak, which has infected several families and their school and work contacts since first being detected on June 1 in a family that had spent six days in NSW while likely infectious, Acting Police Minister Danny Pearson confirmed on Tuesday morning that genomic sequencing established a link to a man in his 40s who tested positive for coronavirus on May 8, having arrived that day from Sri Lanka.
The positive test result saw the man moved from the Novotel/Ibis Melbourne Central quarantine hotel to the Holiday Inn “health hotel” the next day, where he completed quarantine before being released to his home in the Glen Eira local government area in Melbourne’s southeast on May 23.
“There were 24 people on the traveller’s plane, including crew; all passengers tested negative,” Mr Pearson said.
He said all SkyBus crew, 268 Covid-19 Quarantine Victoria staff who worked at the Novotel/Ibis on May 8 and 9 and 360 staff at the Holiday Inn had tested negative.
“No positive tests have been identified to date and staff surveillance testing is being examined. All 12 residents housed on the same floor in the Novotel/Ibis hotel have tested negative. None of the residents in the (Novotel/Ibis) during this period had the virus,” he said. “All CQV staff at the Hotel Ibis and Holiday Inn were vaccinated by May 3.”
Deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng said authorities were working on four main theories regarding the virus’s transmission from the returned traveller to the community, including that another passenger had been infected on the plane, that the case transmitted the virus after he left hotel quarantine having tested negative, that the case had transmitted the virus to a hotel quarantine staff member, or that the case had transmitted the virus to another quarantine hotel resident.
“I think we have to run all those theories to ground. I think the least likely is that there’s someone on the aircraft that’s become infected and then been released from quarantine,” he said.
“The other three, I think, are active lines of investigation.”
Acting Premier James Merlino said the government remained “on track” to begin easing lockdown restrictions on Melbourne from Thursday night, but indicated a ban on Melburnians travelling to regional Victoria would remain in place for some time.
“This cluster was discovered after the lockdown was in place and nothing about today changes our plan, so I just want to send that very reassuring message to all Victorians,” he said.
Analysis of Australia’s hotel quarantine breaches by Covid Live data analyst Anthony Macali shows that since it resumed taking international arrivals in October 2020, Victoria has had the worst hotel quarantine leak rate of any state or territory.
While NSW has had eight breaches in the past eight months, it has also dealt with 961 positive coronavirus cases in overseas arrivals at its quarantine hotels during that time, resulting in a breach rate of one leak per 120 cases.
In comparison, Victoria’s four breaches from 166 positive cases work out to a breach rate of one leak per 42 cases, and compare with a national average of one leak per 105 cases.
The analysis does not take in breaches at Melbourne’s Rydges and Stamford Plaza quarantine hotels this time last year, which prompted Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus, resulting in 801 deaths and a 112-day lockdown.
Victoria’s other active coronavirus clusters have been linked to a man in his 30s who caught the virus in an Adelaide quarantine hotel and returned to the northern Melbourne suburb of Wollert on May 4.
South Australia has had two breaches from 238 positive cases housed in its quarantine hotels, or a leak rate of one in 119.
Of 88 community-acquired cases in Victoria since May 4, 32 have been linked to the main Whittlesea cluster, the first to emerge on May 24, while an associated cluster centred on the Stratton Finance workplace in Port Melbourne comprises 31 cases. Ten cases have been linked to the Arcare aged-care facility in Maidstone, in Melbourne’s west.
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