Australian health authorities have attributed the spread of the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus, which is also known as the B.1.617 variant or the “Indian variant” as it was first discovered in India, in Melbourne to a Sri Lankan traveller, according to Australia’s news.com.au website.
This was announced following the investigations into how the Delta variant began to spread in Melbourne, Australia. The city’s authorities have revealed a number of theories as to how it entered the community, all of which point to the Sri Lankan traveller who landed in Melbourne last month.
Professor Allen Cheng, Deputy Chief Health Officer of the state of Victoria, which Melbourne belongs to, has stated that Victorian contact tracers found a genomic link overnight between this Sri Lankan traveller who entered the State’s hotel quarantine system on 8 May and the West Melbourne Delta cluster.
The traveller who arrived on 8 May tested positive that same day before being transferred from the Novotel Ibis quarantine hotel to the Holiday Inn health hotel on 14 May.
Even though the Sri Lankan concerned completed quarantine and was released on 23 May, Cheng said that authorities were now investigating how the Delta variant spread from hotel quarantine to the wider community in Melbourne.
So far, four possibilities have been identified as listed below:
- The Sri Lankan traveller was infected by another person travelling on the same flight to Australia, who then transmitted the virus to someone in the community.
- The Sri Lankan traveller transmitted the virus after he left hotel quarantine.
- The Sri Lankan traveller transmitted the virus to a staff member along their journey from the airport to the first hotel, and that staff member then spread the variant on.
- The Sri Lankan traveller transmitted the virus to a hotel resident, who then transmitted it to the community after their quarantine stay.