The ACT has reported two new local Covid-19 infections, including a school student with no known links to the cluster, as authorities apologised for test wait times of up to six hours.
In response to questions about people being turned away from testing sites on Thursday night, the territory’s chief health officer asked for patience, saying “please give [health officials] a break”.
The total number of infected people in the ACT’s outbreak is now six, with the original case, a man in his 20s from the northern suburb of Gungahlin, and three close contacts identified on Thursday.
Authorities confirmed a 14-year-old student is believed to have been infectious while attending the Gold Creek School senior campus in Gungahlin, between Monday and Wednesday, sending all teachers, students and visitors into mandatory 14-day quarantine.
“We have no identified links for this case at this point in time so no known travel history or identified link to exposure cases,” said the ACT chief health officer, Dr Kerryn Coleman.
“We will be treating all staff, students and visitors who were at the Gold Creek School from Monday the 9th to Wednesday the 11th as close contacts.”
Coleman said because the situation was “so serious”, everyone who attended the school’s junior campus, the after-school program, the early learning centre and nearby Holy Spirit Catholic primary school on those days are now considered secondary contacts and must be tested and isolated. Construction workers on site at the school during that period are included.
This widespread isolation order also applies to everyone in any of the contacts’ households.
More than 3,900 people have been identified as either close or casual contacts and the ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, expects that number to grow.
Seeing that the Gold Creek School case was discovered after 9am on Friday, it will be officially recorded in Saturday’s numbers, and interviews with the student are ongoing.
Friday’s other case is connected to a previously identified local man who was infectious in the community between Sunday and Wednesday.
The territory saw record testing numbers on Thursday, with more than 2,000 people swabbed, but long lines and limited capacity at testing facilities meant many were waiting for hours and some were turned away when sites closed.
“We are all humans in this community. You have to know that we are all trying to do our best. None of us are trying to stop somebody from getting tested,” Coleman said.
“Please have patience, please give us a break. Everyone in this room is trying our best.”
The health minister, Rachel Stephen-Smith, also apologised.
“First I want to apologise to those people who were sent home from EPIC testing site yesterday evening. We did think when we closed the gates that the team would be able to get through everybody who was already on site yesterday evening. But it became apparent that that was not going to be possible.” she said.
“The team did work through until about midnight. The last swab was taken just before midnight last night and the team worked well beyond that to close down the site.”
Barr promised the territory government would be expanding testing capacity in the coming days, and urged those without any symptoms to stay home and free up space for higher priority individuals.
The chief minister confirmed the territory is aiming to have no daily cases infectious in the community before considering lifting restrictions.
“We want to see no additional community transmission. We want to go back to zero, that is the objective through this process. We want all new identified cases to have been in quarantine for the entire infectious period,” he said.
