Video PlayerClose
SYDNEY, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- A COVID-19 cluster linked to a quarantine hotel in the Australian state of Victoria has grown to 22 cases after three new locally acquired cases were confirmed on Friday.
Victoria's Health Department said all three cases were linked to the Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport outbreak and had been quarantining at home during their infectious period.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said the three cases were from the same family. Two members of that family were previous residents of the Holiday Inn hotel, while one member in the household was considered a secondary contact and had been isolating with other family members.
After multiple negative testing results earlier, the family tested positive for COVID-19 on their day 11 test on Thursday.
Foley said the test-trace-isolate process and a circuit-breaker lockdown triggered by the Holiday Inn outbreak gave authorities a degree of certainty that any new cases would likely be within the ring of close contacts.
There are now 3,515 primary close contacts in the Holiday Inn cluster and 59 household primary close contacts, according to Victoria's testing commander Jeroen Weimar.
Meanwhile, the state government said workers most likely to come into direct contact with a suspected COVID-19 case, including hotel quarantine and health hotel workers, would be first in line to receive the Pfizer vaccine from next Monday.
The vaccine will be administered at dedicated hospital facilities, hotel quarantine settings, Melbourne Airport, or through mobile outreach teams.
"Our priority is to support the Commonwealth to make sure that the vaccine is administered to workers at the highest risk of contracting COVID-19 as quickly and safely possible," Foley said.
The federal government has allocated 12,000 initial doses of the vaccine to Victoria in the first week of the program, with 59,000 doses to be provided over the first four weeks. Enditem