Health authorities are still trying to uncover the mystery COVID-19 case at the centre of the current outbreak that has NSW on edge.
Authorities have firmly turned their attention to Haymarket restaurant XOPP, where it’s thought a man in his 50s from Woollahra — dubbed Patient X after he became the first new case this week — may have crossed paths with the missing link.
Patient X and his wife are the only two confirmed cases in the cluster.
Just 500m from the XXOP restaurant is the Park Royal Darling Harbour quarantine hotel. And on the day Patient X and his wife dined at XXOP, a returned traveller from the US who had the same strain as the couple was in quarantine at the Park Royal.
It’s suspected the traveller may have passed on the virus to a quarantine worker, who may be the missing link.
However it’s not known what role the mystery case played in the hotel quarantine system, making it harder for authorities to find them.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the fact there were no new local cases nationally on Friday was promising and urged people to continue getting tested.
“And the more we see the chances are we may see some more cases and we certainly need to work out that chain for the person we know arrived on 24th April … the Sydneysider, and his wife, that have become positive without an obvious link there. But clearly it’s the same virus.”
With the search for the mystery case continuing, masks and increased restrictions will remain in place across Sydney.
With the centre of the outbreak being a returned traveller, the situation again raises questions about the effectiveness of the hotel quarantine system and procedures currently in place.
The six vaccinated cases had received a variety of the different shots available, including both the one-dose Johnson & Johnson jab as well as the two-dose Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna injections.
This highlights the role of the vaccine in reducing the need for hospitalisation due to the virus but a reminder that it doesn’t eliminating catching the disease.
It also raises questions about being able to effectively implement a vaccine passport system for return travellers.