CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA) – With the city of Perth maintaining a strict lockdown and no new cases being detected, fears of a new cluster of coronavirus infections emerging in Australia eased on Tuesday, said Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
The nation’s record of not recording any local transmission of infections for two straight weeks was broken on Sunday when a security guard working in hotel quarantine in the Western Australian state capital tested positive for the virus.
When it was found that the guard was found to have the UK strain of the coronavirus, the city of more than 2 million was placed under lockdown. He is likely to have contracted the virus from a person who recently returned to the country, said Western Australia state Premier Mark McGowan on Tuesday.
“One of those recent arrivals was accommodated on the same floor as the security guard was working. We are advised that the guard did deliver medication to the door of this quarantine guest,” he told media persons in Canberra.
The premier said 101 close contacts of the security guard had so far tested negative and the results of another 50 deemed close contacts are awaited.