New restrictions for Victorians after state records three new COVID cases in hotel quarantine worker, two guests

Under new rules announced late on Wednesday, household gatherings will be capped at 15 people, down from the previous maximum of 30, with masks again mandatory for all public indoor venues.

The plan to allow 75 per cent capacity for public and private sectors from Monday would also be paused, leaving the current cap of 50 per cent in place.

The case brought an end to the state’s 28-day run of zero community transmission. It is not yet known if the man is carrying a more-virulent international strain of SARS-CoV-2.

Results from genomic testing, which will reveal if the new local case is carrying a more-virulent strain of the virus, are expected on Friday.

A 26-year-old Noble Park man who tested positive to COVID-19 worked as a resident support officer at the Grand Hyatt, as part of the Australian Open hotel quarantine program. He returned a negative test after working his last shift at the hotel on January 29.

There are now 14 exposure sites across Melbourne, with the Victorian health department revealing on Thursday morning the man had visited a Melbourne CBD bottle shop and a kebab store.

The infected man visited Russell Street’s Exford Hotel between 11pm and 11.35pm on January 29, stopping at the pub’s bottle shop, before visiting Kebab Kingz in West Melbourne between 11.24pm – 12.15am.

The Department of Health warned those who have visited the listed exposure sites they must get tested and isolate for 14 days, regardless of whether they return a negative result or not.

Mr Andrews said the infected Noble Park man was a “model employee” who had 20 close contacts who are family and friends. “It’s early stages, that is positive news. He has 20 close primary contacts. We have been able to contact, speak with and give direction to 19 of those 20, so that is a very quick response,” he said. “We will find that 20th person throughout the day and put a public health response around that person.”

There were also “many, many hundreds of people” who had been contacted by the Department of Health as contacts, he said.

Mr Andrews said health authorities had reviewed CCTV footage from the hotel where the man works. He said that they could find “no problem, no breach of protocol or anything of that nature in terms of his employment”.

“We have reviewed literally days of CCTV footage, and this person … has been a model employee. Whether it is offing and donning (personal protective equipment), all the protocols, all the other rules that are followed up.

“Of course he has provided us with very detailed accounts of where he has been as well as any other information that we have needed. We are very grateful to him.”

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The infected man is CFA volunteer, having attended a CFA function at Club Noble in Noble Park on January 30.

Up to 600 Australian Open players, officials and support staff who stayed in the Grand Hyatt are now considered casual contacts with the man.

Tennis Australia said in a statement on Thursday morning that those “quarantined at the hotel now need to be tested and isolate until they receive a negative test result”.

“There will be no matches at Melbourne Park on Thursday 4 February 2021.”

The fresh case comes as Victorian health authorities investigate the transmission of the UK variant of COVID-19 within one of the state’s quarantine hotels after the virus jumped from a hotel room to a guest in the opposite room.

The state’s public health team believe viral particles may have exited the room of a family who all later tested positive. Somehow, the virus either lingered in the air or attached itself to a hard surface, which then caused a woman in another room to contract the same strain of COVID-19.

Delays at Melbourne testing sites

Mr Andrews warned there will be delays at Melbourne testing sites on Thursday, particularly in Melbourne’s south-east, but said there was “no other way”.
A new COVID-19 testing site will be launched in Noble Park where the hotel quarantine resident support worker who tested positive on Wednesday resides.

Mr Andrews said he was “pleased to see a strong response in the south and south-east” but encouraged people to check the Department of Health website to pursue sites with shorter wait times.

“There will be delays, there is no other way around it, it has got to be done meticulously,” he said. “We cannot have people stampeding through those bases, it must be done slowly.

Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander, Jeroen Weimar, apologised for the delays but said at least four additional testing sites on Thursday were being created.

New testing policy for hotel quarantine workers

Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng announced there would be new measures to test hotel quarantine workers after they finish a run of shifts.

The man tested negative to COVID-19 after he completed his last shift on January 29, but then tested positive on February 4.

The last positive virus case in the Grand Hyatt where he was working was on January 22, and that person was moved to a health hotel.

There had been six total COVID-19 cases at the Australian Open hotel quarantine site.

“It’s probably not rocket science to say he’s probably caught it from one of the cases,” he said. “We have got a program for testing them while they are at work and we’re making sure that they are also tested on their days off as well.

“We’re always trying to learn from all of these things and make sure that we tighten up on every step along the way.”

Professor Cheng said he believed the risk to Australian Open players and staff at the Grand Hyatt was “relatively low” because they were in their rooms at the time, but they are undergoing precautionary testing.

Meanwhile, Mr Andrews said that if health experts and national cabinet suggest moving hotel quarantine away from Melbourne and into regional areas, he would consider it, but it didn’t remove all ‘risk’ of the virus escaping quarantine.