Source::Xinhuanet
SYDNEY,
A quarantine hotel in the Australian state of Victoria has been shut down after two new COVID-19 cases were linked to the facility. The COVID-19 cluster at the Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport increased to three on Wednesday, which includes a returned traveler who left the hotel, a food and beverage worker and a female authorised officer who tested positive for the virus on Sunday.
The government agency in charge of Victoria's hotel quarantine system, Quarantine Victoria (CQV) announced the decision to close the hotel on Wednesday morning. "The CQV is implementing strict infection prevention and control measures after a hotel quarantine worker, who last worked at the Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport on Feb. 4, tested positive for the virus," CQV said in a statement.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said a plan to increase Victoria's cap on international arrivals would be put on hold as health authorities race to investigate the new cases.The state's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said "a working theory" was the three cases were linked to exposure to a medical device called the nebuliser.
"It vaporises medication or liquid into a fine mist and in that is everything, especially when it is used as medication and someone is infectious or later tests positive, that next up the virus and that mist can be suspended in the air with fine particles," he said. "We think the exposures are to that event, this nebuliser whereby the method of a virus was carried out into the corridor and expose the authorised officer, the food and beverage service worker and also the other resident."
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