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SYDNEY: Australian authorities carried out massive tests on Tuesday (November 17) and some 4,000 people were confined to quarantine in hopes of quelling a new cluster of COVID-19 cases after hoping it had been largely eradicated.
The state of South Australia reimposed social distancing restrictions on Monday after detecting 21 cases of the coronavirus, most of which were acquired locally.
The cases were the first local transmissions of the virus in Australia in nine days.
South Australian Prime Minister Steven Marshall said tests had identified five new cases in the past 24 hours, while 14 people were suspected of being infected and awaiting test results.
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“We are not out of the woods. We are in the early stages of dealing with this particular unsavory group,” Marshall told reporters in Adelaide.
Marshall said all the cases can be traced back to an Australian who arrived in South Australia from abroad on Nov. 2 and entered mandatory quarantine at a hotel.
Hotel workers are believed to have contracted the virus after touching a surface contaminated with the virus, Marshall said.
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Authorities fear the virus has spread beyond hotel workers and their close contacts, prompting a mandate that confined some 4,000 people to their homes.
“This is a very, very worrying situation. I am not going to underestimate my concern about it,” said Nicola Spurrier, South Australia’s director of public health.
Australia has recorded around 27,800 coronavirus infections and 906 deaths.
Most of the infections occurred in the state of Victoria, forcing nearly 5 million people to remain in strict lockdown for more than 100 days after an increase in cases.
That outbreak has been contained and Victoria has registered no new cases for the past 16 days.
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