Woolies exposure site shock
A WOOLWORTHS supermarket in Bridgewater has been added to the list of public exposure sites linked to Tasmania’s latest positive case of Covid-19.
The supermarket at 28 Green Point Rd was on Thursday night listed as an exposure site for the time between 3.15pm and 4.30pm on Tuesday, with those who had visited at that time required to immediately quarantine and undergo testing.
Given the 1 hour and 15minute window of time given, there is likely to be a significant number of people required to go into quarantine.
It comes as authorities work to ramp up security at quarantine hotels as police consider whether to take action against an accomplice who helped a Covid-positive man flee mandatory isolation.
Premier Peter Gutwein on Thursday confirmed that up to 70 people were considered either close or casual contacts of the man and further positive cases are expected.
It has emerged that the 31year-old NSW man (pictured), had been rejected for G2G permits to enter the state on September 29 and October 1 in which he claimed he was intending to relocate to Tasmania. He was detained at Hobart airport after arriving on
Monday night without a pass, apparently absconded from hotel quarantine the same evening and was found by police at a Bridgewater address on Tuesday. He is in a stable condition under guard at the Fountainside medi-hotel in Hobart.
“There is potentially going to be another positive case but our expectation is that would be in quarantine,’’ Mr Gutwein said.
“I’m as annoyed as anybody else there has been this opportunity for this person to abscond. We are taking every step we can to ensure that we strengthen security at facility.”
Health authorities had identified 38 primary close contacts, another 16 casual contacts plus 16 possible contacts, who were being assessed. All known contacts were in isolation. They include the residents of a property in Bridgewater, 13 police, four airport health screening workers and four students from two Hobart primary schools.
Seven test results received early Thursday were all negative. Public Health officials say while additional cases of Covid-19 are likely, contacts had been identified quickly and isolated and the man had not travelled by public transport or visited any sites where members of the public might be exposed.
“I think there’s a good chance that one of these close contacts with this case may become a case themselves,” Mr Gutwein said.
But he said contacts were unlikely to be infectious themselves so soon afterwards and urged people to come forward if they had symptoms.
“I’m fairly confident that we know the story and that the containment of this person was very prompt.”
Mr Gutwein told parliament is was still unclear how the man had escaped.
“This individual is not being co-operative and has been very difficult to deal with. I note that there was a photograph of this individual leaving a divisional van not wearing a mask,’’ he said.
“The reason he was not wearing a mask was that police ... determined that it would not be in their best interests to have a physical altercation with the gentleman to force him to wear a mask.”
No decision has yet been made on whether the man will be sent home once his quarantine period ends, police said, or whether the person who helped him travel from Hobart to Bridgewater will face police sanction.