An airport transport driver has become New South Wales’ first case of community transmitted COVID-19 in almost two weeks, with the state government announcing further plans to crack down on leakages of the virus from international borders.
State health minister Brad Hazzard announced the “unfortunate situation” on Wednesday morning, revealing a 45-year-old transport drive had tested positive.
“This gentleman drives vans, carrying international and other aircrew back and forth to the airport,” Mr Hazzard said.
Further genomic testing will be carried out, but initial results indicate the virus came from crew on an international plane that flew into NSW.
“We have a plausible hypothesis that this transmission may have originated from contact with international flight crew,” chief health officer Kerry Chant said.
“We need to do more work in this area, and we will be engaging the [airline] industry very shortly with how we can strengthen.”
The man is a driver for a ground transport company, ferrying people to and from the airport, and is not thought to have driven any general public vehicles like taxis.
He began experiencing symptoms on Saturday, and presented for testing on Tuesday, Dr Chant said. Three of his household contacts have been tested for COVID, with results pending.
Dr Chant said the NSW health department was quickly tracing the man’s recent contacts and movements, including the possibility he was infectious while at a “community sporting site” in recent days. She said the man said he had been wearing a mask while working.
NSW had recorded no new cases up until 8pm Tuesday night. The latest positive case was recorded at 7am Wednesday.
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
Seven cases were reported in overseas travellers. This brings the total number of cases in NSW since the start of the pandemic to 4,468. pic.twitter.com/WuHXrLZUUI
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) December 16, 2020
Mr Hazzard said NSW would “have to look more extensively at some of these issues” around airports and quarantine, and said the government’s “inclination” was that plane crew should have to undergo stricter isolation measures when they arrive in Sydney.
Most international air crew only have a one to three days turnaround in NSW before flying back out, and do not have to undertake the standard 14-day quarantine period for other international arrivals. However, Mr Hazzard said these rules may have to tighten.
“There’s a high variability in the approaches the airlines take themselves in testing and looking after their crews,” he said.
“We don’t know what they actually do in their home countries. They don’t necessarily share all of that information with us.”
When asked if NSW should undertake wider mandatory testing of workers connected to international arrivals, not just hotel workers, Dr Chant said NSW authorities were hesitant to vastly expand that requirement – noting the physical and potentially psychological effects of repeated testing.
“You can imagine if you are required to do that on a regular basis, that may cause you anxiety, and also causes nosebleed and has caused some irritation,” she said.
“So, we have developed our saliva test which gives us greater operational flexibility for surveillance purposes at this time.”
More to come.
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