Outbreak of COVID-19 among Bondi backpackers

By MiNDFOOD

Outbreak of COVID-19 among Bondi backpackers
There’s been an outbreak of COVID-19 among backpackers in Bondi, according to NSW authorities.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said there is a risk that other members of the community may have come in contact with infected backpackers.

“We have had a small number of cases in that community where there aren’t obvious links, but a plausible explanation is they have come into contact with an infected backpacker before that backpacker was aware they had COVID-19,” she said.

“Out of an abundance of caution we want to increase testing rates and introduce some pop-ups to increase our testing. That will assure ourselves of the extent of community transmission.

“The aim of that is if we can rapidly identify cases, we can then identify the contacts of those cases, and prevent any onward transmission in the community.”

Dr Chant said her team is working with St Vincent’s Hospital to set up a pop-up coronavirus clinic in Bondi.

It comes after Bondi Beach had to be closed on 21 March due to thousands of beachgoers flouting social distancing rules.

NSW Health said the South Eastern Sydney region, which includes Bondi, has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the state.

NSW has by far the most COVID-19 cases of all the states, with more than 2000 cases confirmed.

Australia has recorded over 4000 cases of coronavirus and 19 people have died.

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