This was published 4 years ago
Family of four staying at Rydges seeded 90% of second-wave COVID cases
By Noel Towell and Tammy Mills
More than 90 per cent of COVID-19 cases in Victoria's deadly second wave have been traced to a family who arrived back from overseas in May and were quarantined at Melbourne's Rydges on Swanston hotel.
The revelation came on Tuesday at the state's inquiry into the hotel quarantine program, where a government lawyer shut down questions about the role of private security guards in transmitting the virus between the hotels and the community.
Dr Charles Alpren, an epidemiologist at the Department of Health and Human Services, gave evidence that the remaining 10 per cent of cases in the state's second surge could be traced back to three more travellers who were quarantined at the Stamford Plaza in June.
The evidence came as a Sydney hotel quarantine guard tested positive to coronavirus he most likely contracted from an international traveller staying at the Marriott Hotel in Circular Quay, before he went on to work at two other venues.
An urgent investigation was launched by NSW Police and NSW Health on Tuesday after genome sequencing of a virus sample from the contractor guard matched a virus sample from a traveller staying in the quarantine hotel who had arrived from the United States.
The case sets off a new potential chain of transmission in Australia that is genetically divergent from the Victoria-derived cases that triggered Sydney's second-wave clusters.
The Rydges on Swanston hotel - the source of 90 per cent of COVID-19 cases in Victoria's second wave.Credit: Getty Images
Dr Alpren told the Victorian inquiry that the state's efforts to control its second surge of COVID-19 could have been improved by a better understanding of at-risk and marginalised communities.
Victoria had a large-scale testing program in place when the second wave of infections developed, but "you've got to test the right people", Dr Alpren told the inquiry.
He said he and his colleagues had been unable to pinpoint the exact "transmission events" at either hotel during which the virus escaped from the quarantined travellers to staff, although "opportunities for transmission" had been identified.
Monday's hearings heard that returned travellers, quarantined the Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza, were the source of more than 99 per cent of the state's current COVID-19 cases.
But the DHHS specialist provided more detail on Tuesday about how the outbreaks, which have forced Melbourne into a strict stage four lockdown and claimed hundreds of lives, spread from returned travellers, via hotel workers and security guards and into the community.
Dr Alpren said the Rydges hotel outbreak started with a family of four who arrived in Australia on May 9. They all fell ill and were diagnosed within the subsequent nine days.
On May 25, three members of staff, identified in Dr Alpren's evidence as a "mixture of Rydges employees and external staff", were then diagnosed with COVID-19.
When asked by lawyer for Rydges, Andrew Woods, if the external staff were government-contracted security guards, DHHS lawyer Claire Harris, QC, objected to the question. The inquiry then upheld her objection.
Ms Harris said Dr Alpren did not have direct knowledge of who they were, but she was concerned that he could potentially identify the individuals if he answered the question.
"There is a very strong public interest in the department receiving this information confidentially," Ms Harris said.
Dr Alpren referred in his witness statement to a suggestion that the familyhad been taken by security guards for a walk outside the hotel on May 18, but there was no conclusive evidence that the virus had been passed on during that outing.
By June, 17 staff members and people close to them, such as their family members, had contracted coronavirus.
It all stemmed from the family of four, Dr Alpren said.
The Stamford Plaza outbreak has been traced back to a couple and another returned traveller.
The traveller – a man – returned to Australia from overseas and commenced mandatory quarantine on June 1, Dr Alpren said.
He became symptomatic the same day and was diagnosed with COVID-19 on June 4.
The couple returned to Australia on June 11 and were diagnosed on June 15 and 16.
The $3 million inquiry into the hotel quarantine system, set up by the Andrews government and led by former judge Jennifer Coate, also heard on Monday that DHHS advice to guards at quarantine hotels was "inappropriate" for use in a high-risk setting.
Asked for his view about what might improve the state's response to outbreaks of transmissible diseases, Dr Alpren said community understanding was crucial.
"There is nothing as far as case and contact tracing that beats local understanding," Dr Alpren said.
"Understanding the communities that are affected by whatever disease you are seeking to control is crucial to be able to bond with those communities and work with them to reduce disease transmission."
The public will learn new details about what happened inside troubled quarantine hotels when security guards, returned travellers and officials responsible for infection control front the hotel quarantine inquiry later this week.
On Thursday, two nurses and four returned travellers will give evidence. The following day, two more returned travellers, a security guard and a government worker will be questioned.
With Kate Aubusson and Paul Sakkal
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