90% of Victoria’s coronavirus cases can be traced back to just ONE hotel
REVEALED: 90% of Victoria’s coronavirus cases can be traced back to just ONE hotel – after COVID-19 spread to staff during the bungled quarantine program
- The virus escaped Melbourne’s Rydges on Swanston hotel, inquiry heard today
- Most cases can be traced back to a family of four which was moved there
- The four family members had all tested positive to COVID-19 by 18 May
- By mid-June, a total of 17 staff and their close contacts had tested positive
By Charlie Moore, Political Reporter For Daily Mail Australia
Published: 21:48 EDT, 17 August 2020 | Updated: 22:38 EDT, 17 August 2020
Nearly all Victoria’s second-wave coronavirus cases can be traced back to a single quarantine hotel, an inquiry heard today.
The virus escaped Melbourne’s Rydges on Swanston hotel after a family of four was moved there following positive tests, according to government epidemiologist Charles Alpren.
The family returned from overseas on May 9, started quarantine in another hotel and was moved to the Rydges on May 15.
Staff inside a hotel in Melbourne are seen moving luggage for guests in quarantine on June 25
The virus escaped Melbourne’s Rydges on Swanston hotel (pictured) after a family of four was moved there, an inquiry heard today
All four tested positive to COVID-19 by May 18.
The following week, on May 25, three hotel staff members were diagnosed with the deadly virus.
By mid-June, a total of 17 staff and their close contacts had tested positive.
The virus then made its way out into the community and the outbreak is linked to another 24 clusters.
‘It is likely that the large majority – I said in my statement approximately 90 per cent or more – of COVID-19 infections in Victoria can be traced to the Rydges Hotel,’ Dr Alpren said.
Almost all the other cases can likely be traced back to the Stamford Plaza Hotel which was also used for quarantine, according to Dr Alpren.
‘It is likely that a high proportion, approximately 99 per cent of current cases of COVID-19 in Victoria have arisen from Rydges or Stamford,’ he said.
Some 46 workers from the Stamford Plaza and their close contacts were found to have caught COVID-19 from a man who returned from overseas on June 1 and a couple who returned on June 11.
Travellers arriving in Melbourne head into their two weeks of hotel quarantine
Dr Alpren said Victoria’s health department had seen ‘no evidence of any other transmission’ outside the hotels.
‘That’s not to say that there are no other transmission events that could be there.
‘But because there are very few people now coming into Victoria who potentially offer new sources of importation of the virus, it is less and less likely,’ he said.
In late May, when the virus first broke out of hotel quarantine, 19 people in Victoria had died from COVID-19.
The state’s death toll now stands at 351, with almost 7500 cases active.
The inquiry continues.
RYDGES ON SWANSTON CLUSTER:
* May 9 – Family of four return to Australia from overseas and begin mandatory hotel quarantine. First family member becomes symptomatic on the same day.
* May 10 – Second family member becomes symptomatic.
* May 11 – Third family member becomes symptomatic.
* May 12 – Fourth family member becomes symptomatic.
* May 14 – First two family members test positive to COVID-19.
* May 15 – Family moved to the Rydges on Swanston Hotel.
* May 17 to 18 – Other family members test positive to COVID-19.
* May 25 – Three members of staff at Rydges on Swanston Hotel become symptomatic. They subsequently test positive to COVID-19.
* May 26 to June 18 – A total of 17 people are epidemiologically linked to the Rydges outbreak, and were either working in the hotel or household members or social contacts of staff at the hotel. An additional case, a household contact of a staff member at the Rydges hotel, is diagnosed with COVID-19 in Queensland.
* May 30 – Department of Health and Human Services receives first genomic analysis relating to the outbreak and comes to the conclusion all cases belonged to the same transmission network.
* By July 31 – DHHS has received genomic sequencing reports of 14 of the 17 cases epidemiologically linked to the outbreak. It found all 14 cases cluster genomically together and cluster genomically with the family of overseas returnees.
STAMFORD PLAZA CLUSTER:
* June 1 – Man returns from overseas and enters mandatory hotel quarantine. On the same day, he becomes symptomatic.
* June 3 – Man tested for COVID-19, diagnosed with the virus the following day.
*June 10 – Staff member becomes symptomatic.
* June 11 – A couple returns from overseas and enters mandatory hotel quarantine. On the same day, one of them becomes symptomatic. The second becomes symptomatic the following day.
* June 14 – Staff member diagnosed with COVID-19. The couple is tested for the virus.
* June 15 to 16 – Couple diagnosed with COVID-19.
* By July 13 – A total of 46 people have been epidemiologically linked to to the Stamford Plaza outbreak are diagnosed with COVID-19. They are either workers at the hotel or household contacts of staff members.
* Subsequent genomic sequencing concludes the outbreak consists of two distinct chains of transmission. One cluster arose from the overseas traveller from June 1, the other from the couple from June 11.
* To date, the DHHS has received genomic sequencing reports of 35 of the 46 cases epidemically linked to the outbreak.
* No links found between the cases in the Rydges hotel outbreak and Stamford Plaza outbreak.
Source: Witness statement of Dr Charles Alpren, epidemiologist at the Department of Health and Human Services.
