New Zealand pauses flights from Perth after hotel worker and two housemates test Covid-positive

New Zealand has ordered a pause on direct flights from Perth after a Western Australian working in the state’s hotel quarantine program tested positive for Covid-19.

The WA premier, Mark McGowan, revealed on Saturday the guard and two of his housemates tested positive for coronavirus, the second outbreak in the state in a fortnight.

McGowan is expected to make a call on whether the state will again plunge into lockdown on Sunday, but in the meantime the NZ Ministry of Health has announced the country will no longer accept flights from WA after carrying out a rapid public health assessment.

“The Ministry of Health carried out a rapid public health assessment on the impact for New Zealand last night and, after working with airlines, all direct passenger flights from Perth to New Zealand were paused,” the country’s health department said in a statement.

“Western Australia health officials are meeting this morning to decide whether they will implement further restrictions or a full lockdown.

“Western Australian premier Mark McGowan said publicly yesterday said that a full lockdown was not necessary at that stage because Perth had still been subject to earlier Covid-19 restrictions including mask wearing and social distancing during most of the worker’s infectious period. However, he said a lockdown could be enforced if the situation changed.”

McGowan said on Saturday that contract tracers were working to determine whether it was likely the virus could have spread during the snap lockdown in Perth last week.

“We are effectively in a holding pattern and I hope we can avoid going back into lockdown,” McGowan said.

The guard worked at the Pan Pacific Hotel from 24-26 April. He and his housemates returned positive tests on Saturday afternoon, after being tested earlier that day.

On his days off work from 27-30 April, he moved through the community going shopping, seeing friends and visiting Mirrabooka Mosque.

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Seven people were living in the house, including two guests from Canberra, and the other five people have tested negative. All of the people in the house have been moved to hotel quarantine.

“Contact tracers have been working and continued to work through other potential close contacts,” McGowan said.

“They are working as fast as they can to ensure we can have anyone who was potentially exposed be put in self isolation and tested as soon as possible.

“I ask everyone to co-operate with our contact tracing teams and follow the instructions.”

McGowan said that, because Perth had been under tighter restrictions than normal at the time, the guard had been in the community – but he was confident any further transmission of Covid-19 had been minimised.

“What has helped enormously is that, due to the interim restrictions we have had in place since Tuesday, they have significantly reduced movement in the community and everyone has been wearing masks,” McGowan said.

“That gives us some confidence that the risk of transmission is significantly lower than it would normally be.

“These factors and the fact we have picked up this case as early means we can avoid moving into a lockdown at this point.”

The guard had received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine just days before he tested positive, and initially believed his symptoms may have been a reaction to the jab.

He had worked on the same floor as two travellers – one from the US and one from Indonesia – who were transferred to the Pan Pacific Hotel on 24 April and tested positive.

“CCTV vision is being reviewed, however there is no clear explanation at this point as to how this security guard could have been infected,” McGowan said.

McGowan said he’d been told the security guard had been “very responsible”.