Hundreds of people who visited two Melbourne nightclubs at the weekend will need to isolate after potentially being exposed to the Omicron variant of COVID-19. It’s being considered a potential super-spreader event. Yay. 

Fitzroy’s Sircuit Bar and the Peel Hotel  in Collingwood were both announced as close-contact exposure sites by the Victorian Department of Health on Wednesday morning. 

The positive case visited the nightclubs between 9 PM to midnight and 11:30 PM and 3 AM on Friday December 10, respectively. 

More than 850 people should now be isolating. For vaccinated party-goers it’s seven days, for unvaccinated peeps (who shouldn’t have been allowed into the clubs anyway) it’s 14 days. So, no-one should miss out on Christmas if they didn’t contract the virus. Unless they want to go to Queensland. Or likely any of the other low-COVID states.  

The Age has reported that the health department clarified that if a clubber had visited before midnight on Friday they would have to isolate until Friday 11.59 PM. And if they stayed past midnight they would need to stay home until the same time on Saturday. 

Everyone potentially exposed is required to get a PCR test (the nose-invading ones) as soon as possible, and another the day before they leave quarantine. 

Anyone living with those in isolation don’t need to get tested unless they develop symptoms. Anyone who was at Sircuit before the exposure period but isn’t 100% sure if they were there after 9pm are also encouraged to get tested.

Peel Hotel owner Tom McFeely told radio station 3AW he was considering staying shut this weekend.

“If your staff has to isolate you can’t open, and it makes things extremely difficult, just when we thought we were getting back to normal,” he said.

There were 1405 cases and three deaths in Victoria on Wednesday, with six cases confirmed as the Omicron variant. Potentially worrying, considering the potential super spreader event in a Newcastle nightclub earlier this week. 

A Melbourne nightclub super spreader event would be bad news for Christmas plans, I think.

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