So that's all right then, all known cases were covered. The fact that the virus was still circulating though is an inconvenient truth.
Prior to the NSW State Govt totally losing control - across Australia the rate of Hotel Quarantine breaches was running at one breach for every 44 infected international arrivals.
Thanks to the failure to contain the initial breach (source unknown) of the Limo driver not infected by the negative testing Fedex aircrew - given the number of infected international arrivals since then - 210, that suggests that NSW could have had another 5 HQ outbreaks to add to the mystery cases = transmission chains of infection with an unlinked source. Trouble is we will probably never know due to the NSW Contact Tracing system being swamped.
For this outbreak:
- 41 transmission chains have been 'sourced'.
- 24 transmission chains have been given up on.
- over 2,000 unidentified infection transmission chains remain 'technically' under investigation
To make matters worse, the State Govt did not bother to expand CV test processing capacity. Every day for some weeks now (after tests reached low 60,000s) tests are flown interstate for processing by the tens of thousands. Worked ok intially until outbreaks from Sydney spread to Vic & Qld.
Brad Hazzard admitted when confronted by a journalist that the turnaround time for testing in the Hunter was around 4 days. When asked he said there is nothing wrong with that, 'everybody is busy. Just like last year when I had to queue for hours to get tested on the Northern Beaches.'
Nothing to do with processing times but a deft deflection.
The 4 day delay means that 'essential workers', say in Aged Care or Disability Facilities, police, firies, paramedics have to keep working whilst waiting for the test results - there are no spare workers.
NSW Health a few days back notified 5th & 6th year med students they are to be prepared to be called on as a mobile 'surge' workforce to replace infected or isolating doctors within two to three weeks. I don't know if nursing students have received similar instructions.
This complication is driving up the numbers:
Entry screening of staff at NSW Health facilities
Healthcare workers will be asked if anyone in their household is currently self-isolating due to close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case. If the answer is yes; the worker will not be able to attend work until the household member’s first COVID-19 test relating to the close contact comes back negative. The default position is that the worker should work from home for the period; if this is not practicable then special leave would apply.
BTW - you can only effectively deal with a case once it is known - which is why you'd hope there was enough processing capacity available. The lack of a single announcement by the NSW Govt that they purchased/installed additional processing machines to speed up the turnaround times - is noticeable.
The tests are driven once per day to Sydney. Quite likely most, if not all the tests being done in regional NSW have the same issue.
Even more appalling given that the private tester in our area (when tested last week) had the result back in just over 6 hours - so obviously they're not being given any of the testing backlog for some reason?
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