Guests at the Hotel Grand Chancellor stand on their balconies ahead of an operation to move them from the quarantine site in early January.Credit:Matt Dennien
Quarantine guests were eventually evacuated as police and health authorities investigated how the virus moved among guests and the cleaner,with airconditioning initially rumoured to be the source.
The cluster has now been deemed officially over and a report into the outbreak is due to be released on Friday morning.
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Ms D’ath told reporters on Thursday said she had received the final report from police late on Wednesday and would be in a position to make further comments about it in the coming days,but said the hotel’s airconditioning was not to blame and there were no deliberate breaches of protocol.
“We have ruled out airconditioning because the two rooms were on different airconditioning systems,” she said. “But the point around what Victoria is seeing,what Western Australia is seeing,even[what] South Australia is seeing about corridors and air circulation,is an issue that we need to be looking at.
“I can say there is no breach of hotel workers going into rooms against protocol and there is no evidence of people … who were quarantining in their rooms breaching quarantine and coming out against those practices. So there are no deliberate breaches.”
The update comes as state health authoritiesadvised residents not to travel to greater Melbourne after a hotel quarantine worker in the city tested positive for COVID-19,sending hundreds of Australian Open players and staff into isolation.