A Victorian man has tested positive for COVID-19 in Melbourne after completing 14 days of quarantine at a Western Australian hotel at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak.
Key points:
The man travelled from Perth to Melbourne on April 21 and was instructed by health authorities to get tested and quarantine.
The man, from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, returned a positive test result this morning.
Health Minister Martin Foley said because the man tested positive in Melbourne, the case ended Victoria’s run of 54 days without a case of community transmission.
Mr Foley said the man had stayed in an adjacent room in hotel quarantine to a person who later returned a positive COVID test.
He was contacted by Western Australian health authorities as he arrived in Melbourne to be told he was considered a close contact of a positive case.
“Out of caution, before that positive result was returned, the individual requested to be moved to hotel quarantine in Melbourne,” Mr Foley said.
“We will be examining the gentleman’s movements, particularly through the airport, where he did wear a mask, as he did on the flight.”
Mr Foley said the man was asymptomatic and did not breach any health directives.
“He did exactly the right thing, he showed no signs of the illness and as a result of our friends in Western Australia notifying him and notifying us we were able to immediately get onto this case.”
All passengers on Qantas flight QF778 are being considered close contacts and will need to isolate for 14 days.
Health authorities are working to identify any exposure sites.
ABC News: Steve Johns
The man had been staying in the Mercure Hotel in Perth, where other guests had already contracted coronavirus from returned travellers on the same floor.
The WA Health Department said the infections were previously reported as being acquired overseas, but genome sequencing data had since revealed the two people caught the virus at the hotel.
WA Premier Mark McGowan’s office said the returned overseas travellers who passed on the virus had arrived from India.
In a statement, Mr McGowan called for Australia to consider temporarily banning all travellers from India from entering the country.
Two more mass vaccination sites in Melbourne
Mr Foley announced two more mass vaccination sites were coming online today at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital and Sunshine Hospital.
Both sites would be administering the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Capacity at the Mercure Hotel vaccination site in Ballarat would expanded from Monday to accommodate anyone in the 1a or 1b vaccination group, which includes anyone over the age of 70.
