
New cases in hotel quarantine spark NSW virus search.
NSW health authorities are on the lookout for more local COVID-19 cases after the virus jumped across rooms in a Sydney hotel quarantine facility.
NSW Health said in a statement on Wednesday that three returned travellers have come down with the same South African COVID-19 variant strain, indicating a quarantine breach may have occurred.
Two of the three were family members and stayed in connecting rooms on the 10th floor of the Mercure Hotel on George St in Sydney's CBD, while the third person was staying in another adjacent room.
#BREAKING: An urgent investigation is underway following a potential transmission of COVID-19 between returned travellers staying in adjacent rooms at the Mercure Hotel. @danielsutton10 pic.twitter.com/zgyXfoaXs5
— 10 News First Sydney (@10NewsFirstSyd) April 21, 2021
The three people arrived on the same flight on April 3.
NSW Health said it was contacting returned travellers who had been staying on the same floor of the hotel between April 7 and April 12.
Those people will be directed to get tested and self-isolate until 14 days after they left quarantine at the Mercure Hotel, as will relevant hotel staff.
Health authorities also said that a separate case of COVID-19 transmission between hotel rooms of the Adina Apartment Hotel at Town Hall was ongoing, and all contacts located so far have tested negative.
Two returned travellers contract COVID-19 in WA hotel quarantine.
Two returned travellers have contracted COVID-19 in hotel quarantine in Perth, sparking an investigation into the source of the infections.
The WA Health Department had previously reported the infections as being acquired overseas. But genome sequencing has since confirmed transmission occurred at the Mercure Hotel Perth.