A professional golfer locked down in an Adelaide medi-hotel says he fears for his safety after it was revealed two other returned travellers were infected with coronavirus while in quarantine.
Former US Open runner-up Stephen Leaney is currently in quarantine at the Peppers Waymouth Hotel, after recently arriving home from the United States.
The hotel is at the centre of South Australia's coronavirus cluster, which yesterday grew to 29 cases when it was revealed that two returned travellers — previously believed to have caught the virus overseas — had in fact contracted it in the hotel.
"It seems quite comical that we get brought back into a medi-hotel to protect the community from us but it turns out we're now having to get [protected] from the community," said Leaney, who has family in Adelaide.
"If it wasn't so serious, you'd be laughing about it."
This morning, SA health authorities committed to overhauling the state's medi-hotel system by moving "all positive COVID cases from medi-hotels to a dedicated health facility".
But Leaney — who has tested negative for COVID-19 — said he and others in quarantine wanted answers about how the virus had managed to spread to guests in a locked-down facility.
"No-one can explain how it's happened, and nobody feels safe in this hotel anymore," he said.
"We're all locked in our rooms doing the right thing and yet we're getting infected.
"Something has to be done about it because it's clearly not safe for us, and it's not safe for anyone really."
Found out through media reports
Leaney is among those who were forced to re-start a 14-day quarantine at the hotel when the Parafield cluster emerged last week.
He said health authorities had not contacted him about yesterday's revelation of two cases contracted at the hotel.
Rather, he had heard it about it in television and radio news reports.
"The lack of communication is making it more stressful," he said.
Leaney said he feared being forced to go through yet another round of quarantine, and said the uncertainty was taking a significant toll on his and other guests' mental health.
"I fear that because this has happened that they're going to reset it again for another 14 days, and this loop will just keep on going," he told the radio program.
"I've had at least two [COVID-19] tests, and a lot of people have had three negative tests.
"We don't understand why we can't go and self-quarantine at home."
But Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier today said she was confident travellers would not have to go through another period of quarantine, although a final decision had not been made yet.
"I would be very sure that they are not having to re-start," she said, adding that when a decision on the matter is made, hotel guests would be "the first to know".
Professor Spurrier and Premier Steven Marshall have both repeatedly emphasised the safety of Adelaide's medi-hotels system, saying it was given a "gold star" by an independent national review.
Professor Spurrier said last week that it was too early to know how the first case in the Parafield cluster acquired the infection, and said she was focused primarily on containing the outbreak.
She said the matter was being investigated and findings would be published in peer-reviewed academic literature to inform other jurisdictions about how to improve the security of medi-hotels.
