WA records new case, exposure sites

Western Australia has recorded one new local case of COVID-19 overnight, a close contact of a hotel security guard believed to have contracted the virus at the Hyatt Hotel.

Health authorities said genomic sequencing and an investigation into how the guard contracted the virus is still underway.

The worker was one of five positive cases recorded yesterday, three of which were connected to the Delta backpacker cluster.

As a result, the number of potential exposure sites within WA has ballooned to 156, with Woolworths in Westfield Carousel Shopping Centre and a host of locations and public transport routes across Fremantle, Kwinana, Rockingham, and Cottesloe added to the list over the past 24 hours.

The Sundancer Backpackers Hostel has also been added to that list.

The guard was the second to contract the virus while working in the state’s hotel quarantine system this week, with a guard from the Pan Pacific diagnosed with the highly virulent Omicron variant just days before.

WA Health authorities are still working to track down all contacts identified as part of the Delta backpacker cluster, with 30 of the 856 close contacts still yet to be tested.

As the number of exposure sites continues to grow, so does the number of casual contacts, with 2,334 casual contacts having now been identified.

Of those, 457 are still to be tested.

A formal decision on whether the restrictions reintroduced by the state government on December 23 as a result of the cluster should remain is expected to be made tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the state's vaccination rate continues to climb, with more than 35,500 vaccines administered yesterday.

The vaccination rate now stands at 93.2 per cent for those over the age of 12, with 85.4 per cent now fully vaccinated.

About 11 per cent of those over the age of 16 have now received a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.