Delta Covid-19 variant ‘of significant concern’ identified in Melbourne outbreak

A new Covid-19 variant has emerged in Victoria’s outbreak, putting health authorities on high alert.

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Authorities have announced that two cases previously linked to “fleeting contacts” are now believed to be false positives. Source: 1 NEWS

Genomic sequencing from two cases in a West Melbourne family reveals they are infected with the Delta variant, which Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton says has become the predominant variant in India.

“It is a variant of significant concern,” Sutton said.

It remains unclear how those family members, who also travelled to Jervis Bay in NSW, contracted the virus.

Three of today’s four new cases are linked to the family, taking that West Melbourne cluster to seven.

The total number of infections in the current outbreak has reached 65. 

One person has recovered taking the number of active cases to 64.

The three new cases are two parents and a child, with another child in the same family returning an indeterminate test result. 

Sutton thinks that will likely become a positive case.

“It is a concern that it is not linked to other cases, but we are chasing down all those primary case contacts for that family and looking into where it might have been acquired,” he said.

“It has not been linked to any sequence cases across Australia from hotel quarantine or anywhere else that it is not linked in Victoria or any other jurisdiction”

No one has been hospitalised yet with the new Delta variant.

The West Melbourne family has more than 300 close contacts, many of them at North Melbourne Primary School, and some of them live in public health towers.

The other new case is a primary close contact of another confirmed case.

It comes after yesterday’s confirmation that two earlier cases in the outbreak had been ruled false positives.

Those two cases had formed part of the justification for the extension of a lockdown for Greater Melbourne by another week.

Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino said despite this, there were no immediate plans to shorten the lockdown.

“Our answer on that hasn’t changed and nor should it,” Mr Merlino said.

“The advice from public health remains the same.

“It (false positives or false negatives) has been a rare occurrence, but it has been a feature when you do hundreds of thousands of tests.”

The Victoria Health Department said there are still eight cases of transmission through passing contact.

It added there are still five exposure sites where the virus infected people who do not know each other.

Also today, Merlino said the federal Government would try to help Victoria meet an increased vaccine demand.

Victoria wants to double the number of AstraZeneca doses available to GPs, and an extra 100,000 Pfizer doses from mid-June for its public vaccination sites.

There are now 358 sites where exposure to the virus may have occurred.

Meanwhile, the federal and Victorian governments have signed a memorandum of understanding to build the state’s stand-alone quarantine site, with Avalon appearing to be Canberra’s preferred location.

There were 49,439 tests in the 24 hours to midnight yesterday and a record 24,169 vaccine doses.