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Australia: Nearly all Victoria cases may have link to hotel quarantine
In Australia, government decision makers, departments, hotel operators and private security operators are on notice they will be expected to give evidence to the Victorian inquiry into the coronavirus hotel quarantine management, as the inquiry hears nearly all current cases in Victoria could be linked to hotel outbreaks.
The inquiry was launched by the state government after it was revealed that protocol breaches by security guards overseeing hotel quarantine had led to outbreaks in Victoria.
The inquiry heard on Monday that there is evidence that many if not all of the current cases of coronavirus could be linked to the hotel outbreaks.
“Information already available to the inquiry suggests the possibility of a link between many of the cases of coronavirus identified in the Victorian community in the past few weeks, and persons who were quarantined under the hotel quarantine program,” Neal said.
“Comments made by the chief health officer to the media have suggested that it might even be that every case of Covid-19 in Victoria in recent weeks, could be sourced to the hotel quarantine program.”
First coronavirus-linked death in Melanesia as Papua New Guinea outbreak spreads
Papua New Guinea has recorded its first Covid-19-related death – the first Pacific island fatality outside US territories and the first in Melanesia – as it seeks to contain an outbreak in the main hospital in its capital, Port Moresby.
The 48-year-old woman – who had stage four breast cancer – died in Port Moresby general hospital on Sunday. She died with the novel coronavirus, doctors said, and her illness and death “may have been complicated by Covid-19”.
Before the woman’s infection and death, all five confirmed cases in PNG in the past week were among workers at the central public health laboratory, where Covid-19 tests are being conducted, at Port Moresby general hospital. A cluster in the hospital has raised questions about the country’s capacity to safely test and treat cases in an outbreak.