Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has walked back a claim he made to a New Zealand parliamentary committee that a Covid-19 outbreak in the north-west of Tasmania was potentially due to “an illegal dinner party”.
Following Murphy’s testimony on Tuesday morning, the Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, said that the chief medical officer was “was commenting on a rumour” and no dinner party had been identified as a possible source of infection.
Murphy later corrected the record, saying, “This morning in discussions with the New Zealand parliamentary committee I referred to a suggestion that a dinner party may have been the source of some of the transmission in the north-west Tasmania cluster of cases.
“Whilst this possibility had previously been mentioned to me, following investigations I am confident it has not occurred. Tasmanian officials are continuing their investigations.”
The cluster of more than 60 cases has caused a spike in Tasmania’s previously low number of infections and forced about 5,000 people into the country’s strictest lockdown as well as the emergency closure of two hospitals.
So far more than 60 cases of Covid-19 have been linked to the outbreak, including at least 45 medical workers and nine patients. Defence force personnel and Australian Medical Assistance Teams have been deployed to the area, while the North West Regional hospital and North West Private hospital in Burnie will be deep-cleaned by specialist teams while they are closed.
“We have to be prepared to deal with further outbreaks,” Murphy told a New Zealand parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
“We thought we were doing really well in the last week, and then we had a cluster of 49 cases in a hospital in Tasmania just over the weekend – most of them went to an illegal dinner party of medical workers, we think.”
Murphy was giving evidence to the New Zealand epidemic response committee, a select committee set up to run in place of parliament, which has been suspended under the country’s lockdown.
He was stressing the need for continued “vigilance” in keeping the caseload down.
Murphy was not asked about the Tasmanian cluster, but offered the information in passing as evidence of the potential for unexpected new outbreaks to emerge suddenly.
The Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, said he had spoken with Murphy.
“To be frank, Brendan was commenting on a rumour. At this stage ... our contact tracing has not identified a dinner party of health workers.
“However, I accept that this is a serious allegation and it’s something that needs to be followed up, and so we will retrace our steps, but, importantly, I’ve asked the Tasmania police to investigate this matter, and that will be started today. We need to get on top of this.”
Gutwein previously played down widespread rumours that the dinner party was the source of the outbreak.
“There’s a bit of stuff floating around on social media,” he said on Monday. “To be frank, I’ve never taken much notice of social media. The key thing here is we work through this.
“The contact tracking and tracing will determine how this has occurred and, importantly, what the epicentre of it is.”
About 5,000 people across north-west Tasmania have been forced into the strictest lockdown in the country, as health authorities try to staunch the outbreak. It is accompanied by orders for all but essential businesses to close.
The most likely source for Tasmania’s original case is the now-notorious Ruby Princess cruise ship, which has been linked to more than 700 Covid-19 cases and at least 18 deaths since it was allowed to dock at Circular Quay in Sydney on 19 March.
On 30 March, a woman in her 80s who had been a passenger on the Ruby Princess died in the North West Regional hospital, the first Covid-19 fatality in Tasmania.
A man in his 80s, who had also been on the ship, died in the same hospital the next day.
Three days later, on 3 April, two staff at North West Regional hospital tested positive and the Department of Health and Human Services set up an incident management team to control the spread.
On 7 April a third person, a man in his 80s who was also a passenger on the Ruby Princess, died at North West Regional hospital.
By Tuesday, Tasmania had 150 cases of coronavirus, all of which, excluding those that came from international travel, could be traced back to the state’s north-west. Five people have died.
