NSW coronavirus warning as Sydney airport driver tests positive for COVID-19

NSW coronavirus warnings have been issued after a 45-year-old Sydney man who drives international flight crews to and from the airport tested positive for COVID-19.

Key points:

Health authorities believe the case originated from an international aircrew
The man wore a mask and observed infection control measures, NSW Health says
NSW Health is meeting with airlines to strengthen quarantine measures for aircrews
It’s the state’s first locally acquired coronavirus infection since a hotel quarantine worker tested positive at 1.30am on December 3.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the man “drives vans carrying international and other aircrew back and forth to the airport”.

He became symptomatic on Saturday and worked several shifts before taking a COVID-19 test yesterday. His results came back about 7:00am.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said the results of genomic sequencing — which could trace the origin of the man’s infection to overseas strains of the virus — were pending.

She also said the man’s three household contacts had been swabbed for COVID-19.
The genomic sequencing was critical, Dr Chant said, to confirm where the man’s infection came from.

“That will confirm with us an understanding how recent the infection is,” she said.

“We do keep an open mind, while we have a plausible hypothesis that this transmission may have originated from contact with international flight crew.” The van driver worked for Sydney Ground Transport, and Dr Chant said transporting crew was the man’s “sole responsibility”.

She said he was wearing a mask and and taking other infection control measures.

“I am stressing that because I do not want the general community to think that they have been exposed,” she said.

NSW Health are tracing the man’s movements and will release details later today. NSW’s last recorded COVID-19 case was on December 3, where a member of the housekeeping staff at the Novotel and Ibis hotels in Darling Harbour reportedly caught the virus from an American airline crew.

It’s just the second locally acquired infection in NSW since November 7.

The latest case has again highlighted the number of international arrivals NSW receives every week in comparison to other states and territories.

“We need the airlines to come to Australia — they’re bringing back our Aussies, they’re also bringing in our freight,” Mr Hazzard said.

“What we need to do, though, is recognise that there’s a high variability in the approaches the airlines take themselves in testing and looking after their crews.”

Dr Chant said authorities had been auditing hotel facilities where flight crews were staying since the Darling Harbour case two weeks earlier.

“We have also … had a meeting with the airlines to stress the importance of some of those measures,” she said.

“We will be engaging very shortly with how we can strengthen [them]. ABC