A Woolworths employee who spent two weeks in hotel quarantine in Victoria before returning to his home in NSW has tested positive for COVID-19. Now, 50 of his co-workers are self-isolating and customers to the Sydney store are being warned.
According to chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant, the man had spent two weeks in quarantine in Victoria, where he tested positive for the coronavirus. He was later cleared and told he could leave. The man then hopped on a flight to Sydney – wearing a mask, thankfully – and returned to work.
However, his manager at the Balmain store noticed his symptoms, and asked him to get another test. It returned a positive result.
“The requirement is that you are symptom-free for three days and have a 10-day window of illness. He then flew to Sydney and he did work,” Chant said.
“In our investigations he does report some persistence of the symptoms, so in an abundance of precaution, we‘re treating him as infectious.
“The level of virus detected is very, very low and what this may reflect is just the tail-end of the infection but because he’s also got symptoms, we’re just treating it with the utmost of precaution as the fact is he could be infectious.”
Customers at the Balmain store are being warned to stay alert for symptoms. Authorities are also reaching out to passengers sitting near him on the flight, out of an abundance of caution.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard praised the Woolies manager for picking up on the man’s symptoms.
“His employer, a manager in the store, asked him to have another test because he obviously had some sort of symptoms and that test has come back positive,” Hazzard said.
“We’ve got to work on the basis that it’s positive, although sometimes these come back to be false positives, but right now we have to work on the basis that it’s a positive.”
Just this morning, NSW Health began screening passengers from Victoria at airports and train stations, as the state grapples with a second wave of infection. From midnight tonight, new health orders will slap anyone travelling to NSW from a Victorian hotspot with an $11,000 fine.
NSW Health staff commenced screening passengers from Victoria this morning at NSW Airports and XPT train station following new Health Orders made at midnight. New penalties apply to travellers from Melbourne Covid19 hotspots! @NSWHealth pic.twitter.com/511IIXxCiI
— Brad Hazzard (@BradHazzard) July 1, 2020
In Melbourne, 10 entire postcodes were returned to Stage 3 restrictions this week, with heavy penalties for those leaving the house without an excuse.
It also comes as questions are raised as to how tf a cluster of infections have occurred at hotels where returned travellers were supposed to be quarantining. Authorities are pointing to innocent mistakes like sharing a lighter or carpooling, while whistleblowers are claiming security guards had some not-so-socially distanced bone time with guests.
