Western Australia has recorded one new community case of COVID-19 overnight, a 37-year-old man who attended the same Joondalup gym as the first two cases.
Western Australia has recorded one new community case of COVID-19 overnight, a 37-year-old man who attended a gym in Perth’s northern suburbs during the same period as the first two positive cases.
During a press conference this morning, Premier Mark McGowan confirmed health authorities were working with the man, now identified as case 1028, to track down potential contacts, but could not yet confirm exactly how he acquired the virus.
It is understood the man attended the Mobius Health and Performance Gym in Joondalup last Tuesday and Saturday during the same exposure periods as case 1022, a returned traveller from Sydney, and case 1023, the first case of community transmission.
The man had presented for testing and been in quarantine since news broke of the first case on Sunday, returning a negative test result earlier this week before developing symptoms and returning a positive test overnight.
Mr McGowan said the fact that the man had remained in quarantine was encouraging, but reiterated that all those that had worked in the gym since Tuesday needed to get tested.
Testing facilities in Perth’s northern suburbs have been ramped-up in the wake of the news.
Health authorities have identified 310 close contacts of those within what is now being referred to as the 'community cluster', 205 of whom have tested negative for the virus.
A total of 2,199 casual contacts have also now been identified, 701 of whom have returned negative test results.
A snap four-day circuit-breaker lockdown was announced on Monday evening for the Perth and Peel regions after testing confirmed that a second member of the public had contracted the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 from a returned traveller who had visited Bondi - the epicentre of Sydney’s most recent outbreak.
The news that the case, a man in his 30s, had contracted the virus while having dinner at the Indian Ocean Brewery in Mindarie last Tuesday and confirmation that the original case had the Delta variant triggered the lockdown and came just hours after WA recorded its second case of COVID-19, a 32-year-old woman who came into contact with the returned Sydney traveller.
A regional boundary has been placed around Perth and Peel until 12.01am Saturday, with those in the regions required to stay at home unless seeking medical attention or purchasing essential goods - preferably within a five-kilometre radius of the home.
Hospitality venues have been restricted to takeaway only, private gatherings have been banned and beauty salons, gyms, universities and places of workshop have been forced to close.
Fly-in, fly-out workers have been forced to remain in situ unless deemed ‘essential’ to operations, but schools and childcare centres have remained open.
