NSW has recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 for the 24th consecutive day and a returned traveller who tested positive after leaving quarantine most likely contracted the virus overseas, not in a Sydney quarantine hotel.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said that from Friday businesses will revert to the two-square metre rule both indoors and outdoors. Gyms will still need to abide by the four-square metre rule.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says that from Friday businesses will revert to the two-square metre rule both indoors and outdoors.Credit:Nine
On Monday, NSW will ramp up the number of travellers returning home after the intake was cut in half earlier this year.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant confirmed NSW had recorded no local cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday. A total of 18,885 tests were reported over the same 24-hour reporting period.
Dr Chant said NSW Health had ruled out the possibility that a Wollongong man who tested positive for the virus two days after completing his 14-day stay in hotel quarantine contracted the virus at the hotel.
There were five other cases in the same hotel who had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus at the same time as the man. Genomic sequencing of four of those cases showed they did not match the man’s case, suggesting it was “very unlikely” the Wollongong man contracted the virus in hotel quarantine, Dr Chant said.
The man flew into Sydney from South America, where he most likely contracted the virus, NSW Health indicated.
Dr Chant said preliminary genomic sequencing did not suggest the man had a “variant of concern” first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil.
Dr Chant said the man was not very infectious while he was in the community. An expert panel will determine whether his infection is likely historic and no longer contagious, she said.
She said several improvements had been progressively introduced in the state’s quarantine system in response to the emergence of the more infectious variants.
Four new cases were acquired overseas, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 4940.
In Melbourne, returned travellers are being evacuated from the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel and two Catholic schools in Sunbury have been closed after a total of three COVID-19 cases in the community have been linked to the hotel.
The first case detected this week was a quarantine worker, and two more cases were returned travellers who tested positive after finishing their 14-day quarantine period.
Guests at the Holiday Inn started being transferred to the Pullman Hotel on Tuesday night.
More than 950 hotel quarantine workers across the Victorian program are now in isolation after being identified as close contacts of the three Holiday Inn cases.
A total of five cases have been detected in less than a fortnight across three Victorian quarantine hotels. Three are confirmed to be the more infectious British variant of COVID-19.
Dr Chant said she received an update from Melbourne’s Chief Health Officer early Tuesday morning regarding their quarantine leaks.
More to come.
Kate Aubusson is Health Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Lucy Cormack is a state political reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.
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2021-02-10 00:18:00Z
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