Daniel Andrews says he will give phone records to Victoria's hotel quarantine inquiry
Daniel Andrews and his senior staff will hand over their text message and telephone records to the inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine system, after the board of inquiry requested the data on Saturday.
The premier revealed the request at his press conference on Sunday morning, when Victoria recorded a further 12 cases of Covid-19 and one death, ending a three-day stretch without a fatality.
Andrews also announced new Covid-19 rules to come into effect from 11.59pm on 11 October, which include forcing close contacts who refuse a test on their 11th day of isolation to isolate for a further 10 days.
Under another rule to come into effect at the same time, regional Victorian businesses will have to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure patrons are not from Melbourne before seating them.
Andrews said the state of emergency and state of disaster in Victoria had been extended until 11.59pm on 8 November, but no one should read the four-week extension as a guide to shifting rules.
On Sunday authorities in New South Wales announced three new locally acquired cases of Covid-19, while there were no new cases in Queensland, but sewage testing in Townsville revealed traces of the virus.
The deputy premier, Steven Miles, said the goverment would work with health authorities to try to work out if that implied any undetected cases. The chief health officer, Jeannette Young, said the situation was worrying considering the city had not reported a case for many weeks.
In Western Australia, a crew member was transferred from the bulk oil carrier Vega Dream, off Port Hedland, to a clinic on shore for treatment overnight, and returned a positive test. The sample has been sent to Perth for confirmation in a laboratory test, but the health department said it had declared a new outbreak as a precautionary measure, in what was “a rapidly evolving situation”.
‘All of us want answers’
Speaking about the request for phone records in Victoria, Andrews said he and his staff would provide the data “as soon as possible”.
“All of that detail will be handed to the board. It will be done as soon as possible. I can’t give you an exact timeline because Telstra and others have to provide us with those details but that will be provided, just as they’ve asked, just as I indicated we would, if such a request was made,” he said.
“All of us want answers. All of us are entitled to answers.”
The phone records, covering 27 March, could help determine who made the decision on that day to use private security guards in Victoria’s hotel quarantine program.
The inquiry into Victoria’s mandatory hotel quarantine program previously heard that ex-police chief Graham Ashton knew before the nationwide program was announced by the prime minister at 2.15pm on 27 March that private security guards would be used in Victoria to guard returning travellers.
Andrews said that it was against internal protocol for any of his staff to have communicated directly with Ashton, but they would also provide the data requested.
He said if data from encrypted apps, including WhatsApp and Signal, was requested, that would also be provided.
Explaining the new testing requirement for close contacts, Andrews said a “very, very high percentage” of people had submitted to testing but the rule was designed to provide authorities with an even more complete picture.
“This is just double checking, triple checking that you haven’t, in fact, still got the virus,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Outlining the rule for Melbourne residents visiting regional Victoria, he said regional businesses would have to take all reasonable steps to ensure patrons were not from Melbourne before seating them.
Metropolitan Melbourne residents are allowed to travel into regional Victoria only for permitted reasons, but must abide by the city’s rules while there.
The recent outbreak in and around Kilmore was sparked when an infected Melbourne man illegally dined at a cafe in the town.
Statistics released on Sunday showed 810 people have now died from the virus in Victoria, and 898 nationally.
In the fortnight up to Saturday metropolitan Melbourne recorded a rolling average of 9.3 new cases per day, with the figure at 0.4 for regional areas.
The government has said the twoweek rolling daily case average needs to drop below five before lockdowns in the city will be eased in line with regional Victoria.
Asked about the possibility that Melbourne’s cases “will never get to five”, the chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said: “We can’t discount that it might be extraordinarily difficult to drive down to zero but I think it’s possible.
“No one’s been to this point with a second wave anywhere in the world. We are treading new ground,” he said.
Sutton said a cluster linked to Box Hill Hospital had grown to 12, with two cases added on Sunday. The Chadstone shopping centre outbreak also recorded one new case, taking the total number of infections to 33.
Sutton said he was aware of several new family outbreaks, with one in the city’s west linked to five infections. Another has resulted in three cases across two households.
With Australian Associated Press