Qld Covid cases: How virus may have transmitted between floors of Brisbane’s Four Points Hotel

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has explained how the Covid-19 virus may have spread between floors of a quarantine hotel.

A fully vaccinated quarantine worker is believed to be the key to how an infected guest at Brisbane’s Four Points Hotel spread the Covid-19 virus to another person staying on a different floor.

The Covid-positive guest, who had recently arrived from Mongolia, had also received two shots of the vaccine months earlier, but was still involved in transmitting the virus from one floor of the hotel to another.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the quarantine worker had escorted the infected hotel guest to an ambulance to be taken to hospital after he had tested positive to the pandemic virus.

The Four Points Hotel in Brisbane where the Covid-19 virus spread from one guest to another in hotel quarantine. Picture: David Clark

At some stage later, the worker went to a different floor of the hotel to swab a woman flight crew member, who had recently flown into Brisbane from Portugal, via Dubai.

“We are thinking, but we really need to do further investigation, that … that staff member has transferred the virus from the gentleman up to that lady from Portugal and that’s how that occurred,” Dr Young said.

“It’s the most likely explanation we’ve found. But this is very, very preliminary and we do need to look further into it before we can confirm that.”

Genomic sequencing has found both hotel quarantine guests had the Alpha variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

“This is a very infectious virus,” Dr Young said.

“This is the Alpha variant. We know that it can transmit fairly easily.”

Dr Young said the quarantine worker had escorted the Covid-19 positive man to the ambulance at about 1.30pm.

She said the swab that was collected from the female hotel guest was checked into the laboratory for testing at about 5pm.

“We’re trying now to look at whether we can narrow that down,” Dr Young said. “But it would usually take several hours to get a swab from the hotel to the laboratory. The time frames fit.

“We’re looking at CCTV footage.”

The adjoining Westin and Four Points hotels in the Brisbane CBD are both being used as quarantine venues during the coronavirus pandemic. Signs in the window of The Westin Hotel. Picture: David Clark

The woman flight crew member returned three negative Covid-19 tests while she was in 14 days’ quarantine at the Four Points Hotel, including on day 12.

She then tested positive on Saturday as part of routine seven-day testing protocols of flight crew hours after leaving hotel quarantine.

The woman, in her 30s, was out and about in the Brisbane community for about four hours on Saturday, while unknowingly infectious with the virus.

Dr Young said yesterday a man, in his 60s, who dined at the Portuguese Family Centre at Ellen Grove, on Brisbane’s southwestern outskirts, at the same time as the woman had also tested positive.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Queensland would lift restrictions on Greater Melbourne at 1am Friday but was “keeping a close eye on NSW”.

“If you’re a Queenslander, it’s probably best not to be travelling to NSW at this time,” she said.

NSW yesterday recorded 10 new Covid-19 infections.

Originally published as Qld Covid cases: How virus may have transmitted between floors of Brisbane’s Four Points Hotel