Western Australia has recorded no new local cases of COVID-19, Premier Mark McGowan has announced.
Key points:
- Two people who returned from India test positive for COVID-19
- Both are in hotel quarantine, with no community cases recorded
- It comes as the WA government prepares to re-introduce state of emergency legislation
That was despite 5,718 COVID-19 tests being done on Tuesday, Mr McGowan said.
But there were two new cases in hotel quarantine, which the Premier said were people who had returned from India.
Health authorities confirmed a case of COVID-19 detected in a returned traveller in Collie was a historical case.
The man tested positive in a post-quarantine test, and was re-tested yesterday and returned a "very weak positive", WA Health said in a statement.
"The man in his 30s poses no threat to community health and has not been included as a positive case in WA statistics," it said.
The Collie resident travelled back to Australia from Poland and quarantined in a Melbourne hotel for two weeks.
ABC News: Hugh Sando
)Mr McGowan said 75 of the 108 close contacts linked to the recent Pan Pacific cluster had tested negative.
Of the 476 casual contacts, 221 had returned negative results.
Guard's source of infection unclear
Mr McGowan said authorities were still trying to work out how the security guard from the Pan Pacific became infected.
Authorities were trying to determine if he was infected after entering a lift used by two people with COVID-19, who had arrived from the United States and Indonesia.
Mr McGowan said those two travellers had been on the same flight, and authorities believed the United States traveller gave it to the Indonesia passenger on the flight.
ABC News: James Carmody
)"In terms of the guard, we don't know," Mr McGowan said.
"He was masked up, he was wearing PPE, all the precautions were in place.
"He entered the lift they [the returning travellers] had been in and he handled some luggage."
Mr McGowan said authorities believed the luggage the guard handled belonged to the COVID-positive travellers, although the guard was wearing gloves.
After the media conference, a government spokesman clarified that the guard did not touch the luggage, but did touch a trolley the luggage was on.
Almost a third of security guards not vaccinated
Mr Cook said passengers were required to handle their own luggage where possible.
"Sometimes that luggage is placed on a trolley, and the trolley has to be returned to the lobby to receive the next passengers," he said.
"But we will undertake an extensive investigation into all of the potential transmission opportunities that occurred in relation to the Pan Pacific."
Roger Cook said more than 80 per cent of hotel workers across the WA network were now vaccinated, and more than 90 per cent of healthcare workers had received the jab.
But fewer than 70 per cent of security guards had been vaccinated.
As of May 10, it will be mandatory for anyone working in those facilities to be vaccinated.
State of emergency to continue
It comes as the state government prepares to re-introduce state of emergency legislation to allow it to enforce COVID-19 restrictions for at least the next six months.
The bill amends the Emergency Management Amendment (COVID-19 Response) Act 2020 and the Criminal Code Amendment (COVID-19 Response) Act 2020.
The amendments allow WA to implement its hard border arrangements, hotel quarantine, mask wearing, contact tracing and physical distancing measures in line with health advice.
The amendments also allow for increased penalties for serious assaults and threats against frontline officers, including up to 10 years' jail for deliberately coughing or spitting on public officers.
The new bill will seek to extend the state of emergency until January 4, 2022.
What you need to know about coronavirus:
WA notches up another day of no new local COVID-19 cases, two more Indian cases in hotel quarantine - ABC News
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