More cases added to Adelaide’s Parafield coronavirus cluster as Peppers hotel confirmed as source

The line to get tested at the Victoria Park drive-through coronavirus clinic this morning.(ABC Radio Adelaide: Spence Denny)

South Australian authorities say there are now 20 confirmed cases linked to the Parafield coronavirus cluster and another 14 suspected cases.

Key points:
Four new coronavirus cases have been added to the Parafield cluster
Another person who tested positive is being interviewed
A record number of tests were conducted in SA yesterday
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier says the suspected cases are considered at high-risk of becoming a case, have symptoms and are close contacts of the confirmed cases.

They are either waiting for test results or have had a negative test result but are being tested again.

“These are people we feel are at high risk of becoming cases and have symptoms; we’re just waiting for the testing to come through,” Dr Spurrier said.

In all, South Australia has recorded five new cases today — one an aged care worker and three family members of a security guard who worked at a medi-hotel.

Professor Spurrier said the fifth new case — which would be the 21st overall — had just been confirmed and the person was being interviewed to determine the source.

The line to get tested at the Victoria Park drive-through coronavirus clinic this morning.(ABC Radio Adelaide: Spence Denny)
About 4,000 close contacts are in quarantine.

Premier Steven Marshall told State Parliament this afternoon there were “in excess of 5,300 tests conducted yesterday” and another 6,000 were expected to be done today.

“This is nothing short of sensational and would be a record for South Australia, so my heartfelt thanks to everyone in South Australia who has heeded the call to get tested,” he said.

Mr Marshall said the virus was transferred to a cleaner at the Peppers Waymouth medi-hotel “via a surface” and that they believe she infected two security guards but none were symptomatic.

He said he did not believe there had been a breach of the state’s hotel quarantine system, but SA Health would conduct a “fulsome” review once the threat of the Parafield cluster was over.

“We all know that the incubation period for this disease can be up to 14 days so we still do have an anxious wait to see what the true situation is in South Australia but there is more and more data coming in all the time,” Mr Marshall said.

The virus appears to have originated in the Peppers Waymouth Hotel in Adelaide’s CBD.(ABC News: Brant Cumming)
Dr Spurrier confirmed genomic testing had determined the virus strain had come from a traveller staying at the Waymouth Street hotel.

She said the person arrived in Australia on November 2 and was tested on November 3.

The woman who worked at the hotel was the daughter of the 80-year-old who attended the Lyell McEwin Hospital on Friday night and sparked the alert.

Mount Carmel College in Rosewater, which is closed because a student is a close contact with a coronavirus case.(ABC News: Sarah Mullins)
Five schools have now closed because of connections with the northern suburbs cluster — Roma Mitchell College in Gepps Cross, Mawson Lakes School and Preschool, Thomas More College in Salisbury Downs, Holy Family Catholic School in Parafield Gardens and Mount Carmel College at Rosewater.

SA Health has released a list of dozens of locations across Adelaide where people could have become infected.

Authorities have urged people to get tested if they have developed symptoms after visiting those locations.

New coronavirus restrictions came into force at midnight, including limits on gatherings in homes and licensed venues and a temporary ban on community sport.

South Australia now has 34 active coronavirus cases, including a number of unconnected infections in hotel quarantine.

There have been 549 cases in total since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Four people have died.

ABC