Visitors barred from aged care homes as health alerts issued across Sydney
Health authorities are searching for the source of a potential super-spreader event at a northern beaches RSL after a total of five cases were confirmed among residents in the area on Thursday.
Three of the cases visited Avalon RSL on December 11 - a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s reported on Wednesday, and another man in his 60s - a drummer from Frenchs Forest who also performed at Penrith RSL and Kirribilli Club while potentially infectious.
A pop-up testing clinic in Avalon on Thursday.Credit:Nick Moir
NSW Health’s contact tracers suspect another unknown person is the source of these infections along the northern beaches and there’s potentially more cases, Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said.
“It is critical that anyone who was at that RSL club [on Friday] gets tested,” Dr Chant said.
“Our working hypothesis is that someone at the RSL club was potentially the source of infeciton for a number of subsequent cases,” she said.
One of the cases who attended Avalon RSL - a woman in her 60s - came into contact with another woman at Avalon Bowling Club who subsequently tested positive - an aged care worker in her 50s at Pittwater Palms retirement village.
Her husband has also tested positive.
Anyone who attended the following venues across Sydney have also been urged to immediately get tested and isolate:
- Avalon RSL December 11 all day until close;
- Penrith RSL December 13, 1pm to 6pm; and
- Kirribilli Club December 14, noon to 3pm.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said several aged care facilities on the northern beaches would be directed to ban visitors until the source of this growing cluster has been identified and the situation brought under control.
She urged residents of the northern beaches with even the mildest of symptoms to get tested.
Aged care operator Aveo confirmed a staff member at Pittwater Palms retirement village in Avalon - a woman in her 50s - had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
All staff have been directed to immediately self-isolate at home and get tested if they develop symptoms. Residents who had come into close contact with the staff member or have visited the hotspot areas as identified by NSW Health have been advised to get tested and self isolate.
“The health and wellbeing of our residents and staff is our number one priority,” an Aveo spokesperson said in a statement.
“We have taken immediate and comprehensive action outlined in our emergency response protocol and are working closely with the Public Health Unit, which is now providing direction to Aveo’s COVID Response Team.”
People queue for COVID tests at Mona Vale in Sydney.Credit:Nick Moir
The staff member is well and is being monitored.
“We want to get on top of this and don’t want this concerning us in the last few days before Christmas and urging everyone to be as vigilant as ever,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Given the cases, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said he would like the state’s daily testing rates to be between 15,000 and 25,000.
Long lines began forming outside COVID-19 testing clinics in the area on Thursday morning.
“We’re having genomic testing done of those cases from yesterday and soon to be today, and then we’ll have a better handle of the circumstances of those particular cases,” Mr Hazzard said.
Mr Hazzard refused to comment on reports that the two Avalon cases identified on Wednesday - the woman in her 60s and man in his 70s - did not self-isolate after testing, and said he was “disappointed” a health worker had made comments about individual cases to the media.
“We have never commented on those particular cases, and we won’t, because we want people to always feel comfortable in coming forward,” he said.
On Wednesday night, NSW Health released details of a string of venues the Avalon pair visited while infectious.
Health authorities said anyone who visited the venues is considered close contacts and should get tested and isolate for 14 days, even if they receive a negative result.
Mr Hazzard said he hoped other states wouldn’t “do anything preemptive” in response to the cases, noting many of the returned travellers being quarantined in Sydney hotels came from interstate.
“We’re doing the work for them, and I think they should just allow us to do that work, which we’ve done so well,” he said.
On Thursday morning, Queensland acting premier Steven Miles said it would take a lot more cases for the border to close, but local government areas or postcodes could be declared hotspots if the outbreak worsened and the situation will be monitored for the next 24 hours.
Speaking alongside the Premier in Woodburn, south of Lismore, Prime Minister Scott Morrison backed the coronavirus response of the Berejiklian government and took a swipe at other states.
“NSW is the gold standard,” he said. “I don’t spend too much time worrying about NSW.”
He said the state’s “ability to stand and remain open during the crisis of 2020 had an immeasurable benefit to the national economy.
“Where other states faltered, NSW stood very strong,” the Prime Minister said.
with Lydia Lynch
Kate Aubusson is Health Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Jenny Noyes is a journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald.