South Australia Coronavirus Cluster: What We Know So Far

On Sunday the South Australia’s health department announced four cases of COVID-19. While one of the cases is a returned traveller in hotel quarantine, three cases were found in the community.

This is concerning because it is the first case of community transmission in South Australia since April 16. The cluster was identified after a woman in her 80s tested positive for the virus at the Lyell McEwin hospital emergency department on Saturday. Contact tracing began, with two of her family members testing positive. One of these two family members – a woman in her 50s and a man is his 60s – works in a medi-hotel, the name given to SA’s quarantine hotels. Authorities are working to confirm this is the cause of the cluster using genomic sequencing.

Both of those family members are now quarantining in a medi-hotel. SA’s chief public health officer, Nicola Spurrier, said on Sunday she was concerned because the cases were members of a large family, raising concerns that a large cluster may emerge. By Sunday afternoon a fourth case had been identified, who authorities said was another close family member, and an employee at Yatala labour prison laide’s northern suburbs.

What are the latest developments? By yesterday morning the cluster had grown to 17. Of those, 15 were linked to the same family.

More than 100 people have been ordered to self-isolate by health authorities while contact tracing is under way. in

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