Leaked emails reveal patient zero for Victoria's second wave disaster
Leaked emails have determined who patient zero is in regards to the resurgence of the disastrous second wave of COVID-19.
It has been revealed that the spread of the deadly infection has been linked back to a night duty manager at the Rydges hotel on Swanston Street - not actually a badly behaved security guard.
Leaked information shows that the night manager reported on Monday, May 25, that he had come down with a fever.
The following day Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions officials were told the hotel employee had tested positive.
It is presumed he caught it from a returned traveller, who has not been identified.
The emails show a commendable effort was made to stop the spread of the infection, however their efforts were proven futile.
Seven security guards who were hired to patrol the hotel were stood down immediately and told to go home, isolate and get tested.
Another small number of hotel staff and health workers were told to do the same.
An email headed “Hotel staff member status and exposure to staff” reported on May 26 that the night manager himself was “now isolating at Rydges” and “feeling as well as can be expected”.
Unfortunately, it was already too late and attempts to curb the spread of the infection failed.
Five of the original seven guards, all from contractor Unified Security, soon returned positive COVID-19 tests.
The disease was spread to their families in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne, which helped seed the second wave that has infected 15,863 Victorians, including 7866 active coronavirus cases as of Thursday.
As of Thursday, 275 people have died of COVID-19 in the state.
Officials assumed it was a security guard who had been the first one to contract the disease however as it turns out, it was the night manager.
There is no suggestion from any party that the hotel manager partook in any improper behaviour.
Victoria’s Health Minister Jenny Mikakos was running the operations of the crisis, however former Health Minister and Attorney General Jill Hennessy has taken charge.
“The suggestion that security guards ever had responsibility for infection control is one of the biggest myths of this debate,” a source closely involved in the hotel quarantine program told The Age.
“Private and public hospitals use security guards, but those guards don’t deliver babies, perform surgery or oversee infection control. Full responsibility for infection control lay with the authorised officers who were brought in from various government departments.”
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews has created a board of inquiry to investigate the shortcomings in the
hotel quarantine program.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has previously revealed that genomic sequencing carried out by Melbourne’s Doherty Institute shows that most, if not all of Victoria’s second-wave cases, may be traceable back to breaches in hotel quarantine.
“Clearly there has been a failure in this program,” Professor Sutton said in July.