Three new COVID-19 cases linked to Australian Open as government insists it’s not footing quarantine bill

“I’m aware of these figures and I wanted to share them with you because there’s been a lot of debate about how many people we have in the Australian Open who are positive,” she said. “This morning we became aware of three more positives.”

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The three additional cases will be included in Thursday’s official figures.

Ms Neville said two cases are players, including one who is strongly suspected of shedding the virus and is already in lockdown because they arrived on a flight with another positive case.

The second player and their support person who returned positive swabs will not be allowed outside their hotel rooms while the Department of Health and Human Services reviews their test results to determine whether they are also shedding the virus.

“In the meantime though, the player and the support person … will not be training until we have final confirmation they are either shedding [the virus] or that they are positive,” Ms Neville said.

“If they are positive those two will go into the health hotel and the two bubble people will be considered close contacts and will be in lockdown for the 14 days.”

Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Wednesday morning the bill for the quarantine program is expected to top $40 million and will be partially paid by the Victorian government.

That was strongly disputed by Ms Neville.

“I want to be really clear about this,” she said, “hotel quarantine for the Australian Open is fully funded by Tennis Australia, I’ve triple confirmed that again today.

“I think you know we are asking, for example, Australians returning [home] to contribute to their hotel quarantining costs … so it is appropriate that Tennis Australia similarly do that.”

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Premier Daniel Andrews has also been forced to defend the outsourcing of testing and health checks of players and staff to a private contractor involved in the St Basil’s nursing home outbreak, which led to the deaths of 45 residents.

Mr Andrews said Aspen Medical was more than capable of doing the work and it would prevent a drain of public hospital staff.

On Tuesday, Mr Tiley contradicted Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton’s report that two players were among cases of COVID-19 connected to the tournament.

In a health department update just before 5pm, Professor Sutton specified that the new cases “involve two players”.

But Mr Tiley appeared to dispute this, stating “none of them are players”. He suggested some players had cases of viral shedding, as opposed to being actively infectious.

Players including Roberto Bautista Agut and Yulia Putintseva compared life in lockdown to prison, with the latter saying: “In jail, at least you can breathe fresh air two times a day.” Bautista Agut later issued an apology, labelling Australia’s efforts to limit the spread of the virus as “admirable”.