Parents, child caught virus at hotel

The state recorded three new locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Friday as the state slowly emerges from a snap five-day lockdown.Victoria’s health department confirmed no new infections had been recorded in hotel quarantine on Friday.Health Minister Martin Foley said the positive cases were two parents and a child from the same family.One parent and the child were quarantining on the third floor of the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn at the same time as the man who used a nebuliser who is believed to have triggered the latest outbreak.The pair were released from hotel quarantine on February 7 and had been isolating at home ever since.One parent, who was not at the Holiday Inn, was considered a secondary contact and had also been isolating at home during their infectious period.Mr Foley said all three had multiple negative tests between February 10 and 12 before turning positive on Thursday.He said the family returned a positive test on day 11 of their isolation period.

“The family isolated throughout their entire infectious period and throughout the entire period that they have been quarantining at home,” Mr Foley said.The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn – the cluster that sent Victoria back into a third lockdown – is now 22.Victoria’s COVID response commander Jeroen Weimar said the new cases continued to build the picture of a super spreader event on the third floor of the Holiday Inn on February 3 or 4.He said this family’s incubation period appears to have been longer than some others.Mr Weimar said 3515 primary close contacts linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak were still isolating.Chief health officer Brett Sutton tweeted that Victoria wasn’t out of the woods just yet.“These three are already in quarantine,” he said.“But this isn’t over yet – all known contacts of cases or exposure sites need to stay in quarantine for the full 14 days to wrap this up.”More than 21,000 Victorians were tested in the past 24 hours – down from Thursday’s number of more than 30,000 swabs and Wednesday’s staggering figure of 40,000.The health department said the number of active cases was 27.Health officials are still waiting on confirmation of an indeterminate test result in a man from an aged care facility.

The case, which wasn’t added to Wednesday’s daily numbers of zero locally acquired infections, remains under investigation by health authorities.The state’s COVID response commander Jeroen Weimar confirmed on Thursday that a fourth test taken by the man still wasn’t conclusive.The man, who presented to hospital from the Twin Parks Aged Care facility in Reservoir, twice tested negative before he returned a “weak positive” result.The health department said the man was a positive case from August last year.They said he had no links to any cases from the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn cluster, and the test result was thought to be “persistent shedding from a previous infection”.
The end of Victoria’s 5 day lockdown doesn’t mean the end of all restrictions.
Another test was taken on Thursday before a final determination on his status will be made by the expert review panel.“All the precautionary measures are already in place should the expert review panel determine otherwise,” the department said.It comes as viral fragments were detected in wastewater samples from seven Melbourne suburbs with no active coronavirus cases.Wastewater testing has revealed “weak detections” of COVID-19 viral fragments in Wantirna South and Boronia on February 15 and Carrum Downs, Langwarrin, St Kilda, Caulfield and Caulfield North on February 16.Anyone who has any COVID-19 symptoms and lives in or has visited the areas has been urged to get tested.
jack.paynter@news.com.au