Victoria records no new local COVID-19 infections linked to WA hotel quarantine case

A traveller's COVID-19 infection in Perth has been added to Victoria's COVID-19 tally as an interstate acquired case, with no new local infections reported.

Nursing staff are seen at the mass vaccination hub at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, Wednesday, 21 April, 2021.

Nursing staff are seen at the mass vaccination hub at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, Wednesday, 21 April, 2021. Source: AAP

Victoria has reported no new locally acquired COVID-19 cases

The Department of Health reported two new cases on Saturday, including a man who spent two weeks in hotel quarantine in Perth and returned negative test results when he was allowed to leave on 17 April.

The other, from more than 13,000 tests in the past 24 hours, is an overseas acquired case in hotel quarantine.

Victorian authorities are counting the Perth case in its own tally because the man, who moved freely through the city for five days before flying out on 21 April, tested positive in Melbourne.

But it has not designated the infection as "locally acquired", meaning the state's streak without any community transmission now stands at 57 days.
When the man arrived in Melbourne, Western Australian health authorities contacted him to say he was a primary close contact to infections detected at the hotel he had quarantined in.

He went home with his spouse, got tested and isolated immediately.

The man went into hotel quarantine in Melbourne on Thursday at his own request and received a positive test result on Friday morning.

"He did all of the right things, got his gear, went straight home, sat in the back seat, put his mask on all the way home and stayed separate from the rest of the members of his family," Health Minister Martin Foley said on Friday.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley. Source: AAP
The man's spouse, his two children and one child's friend are isolating and at least two of them have received negative test results, testing chief Jeroen Weimar told ABC radio on Friday.

Travellers to Melbourne who were on the flight QF778 have to get tested and self-isolate for two weeks.

Anyone in Terminal 1 at Melbourne Airport between 6.30pm and 7.30pm on Wednesday has also been instructed to get tested and isolate until they get a negative result.

The man's infection has sent the Perth and Peel regions into a snap three-day lockdown.
A woman he stayed with during his five days outside hotel quarantine has tested positive to the virus and there are multiple exposure sites.

A total of three people have contracted the virus while staying at Perth's Mercure Hotel.

WA authorities confirmed through genomic testing that the virus spread in the corridor of the hotel from a couple who had returned from India.


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Published 24 April 2021 11:06am
Updated 24 April 2021 11:17am
Source: AAP, SBS


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