Genomic sequencing has confirmed a Melbourne hotel quarantine guard has the UK super strain of COVID-19.
The case reported on Wednesday night, forced 500 Australian Open tennis players and staff back into isolation on Thursday.
Victoria on Friday recorded no new cases of community transmission – just two new cases in hotel quarantine – following 14,612 tests taken on Thursday.
A further 8,000 tests have been processed since midnight, and all results have come back negative.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton says, it’s still unclear how the man contracted the UK variant of the virus.
“We’d always worked on the assumption that it was going to be this variant, that’s because four of the six residents who tested positive at the hotel had that variant identified in them,” said Mr Sutton.
“Where exactly it’s come from is still to be determined, we do need to marry up that genomics information with the epidemiological information – so the CCTV footage, the interviews – to really understand how transmission might have occurred.”
All of the guard’s close contacts have so far tested negative.
In light of the developments, matches at the Australian Open lead-in events have now resumed.
Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley has confirmed all players test results so far have come back negative.
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