16 Jun 2021

Covid-19 community case confirmed in Sydney

8:25 pm on 16 June 2021

A locally acquired case of Covid-19 has been detected in Sydney.

A couple enjoy the view of Sydney Harbour from Mrs Macquarie's Chair on May 3, 2021, as Australia's largest city is enveloped in a thick bank of hazardous bushfire smoke forcing authorities to scale back controlled forest burning nearby.

File photo of Sydney. Photo: AFP

NSW Health said the Bondi man, in his 60s, worked as a driver and that international flight crew had been among his passengers.

The man visited the Bondi Junction shopping centre in the city's east several times in recent days.

Visitors to Bondi Junction's Event Cinemas on Sunday, 13 June between 1.30pm and 4pm for a screening of Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard which started at 1.45pm were asked to contact NSW Health, self-isolate for 14 days, and get tested.

The man took a saliva test yesterday, which came back positive today.

Genomic testing is under way to find the source of the infection.

It is the first locally acquired case in the state since a couple returned positive swabs in early May.

Those cases prompted Premier Gladys Berejiklian to tighten restrictions including limiting household guests and banning dancing at nightclubs.

Contact tracers used genomic sequencing to link the source of those infections to someone in NSW's hotel quarantine program, but how the virus made it into the community remains a mystery.

It is the second coronavirus scare for the state in 24 hours after three cases were confirmed on the same floor of a quarantine hotel in the city's CBD.

NSW Health authorities are investigating whether it was an instance of Covid-19 spreading among returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

All three cases arrived in Sydney on the same flight from Doha on 1 June and stayed in adjacent rooms at the Radisson Blu hotel.

Authorities have since contacted other returned travellers who had been discharged from the fourth floor of the hotel and have asked them to isolate and get tested.

- ABC

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