Australian city Adelaide on high alert after first coronavirus outbreak since April

South Australia On Alert As Adelaide COVID-19 Cluster Grows
People queue for a Covid-19 test in Adelaide
Getty Images
Luke O'Reilly16 November 2020

South Australia has gone on high alert after its first coronavirus outbreak since April.

An outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Adelaide has grown to 18 cases and prompted the closure of two schools and a fast-food restaurant.

Health authorities say they believe a worker at a hotel where people arriving from abroad are being quarantined caught the virus and then infected other family members.

Up to 13 infections are linked to that hotel worker alone, the BBC reported.

Authorities are scrambling to contain the outbreak and have opened a pop-up testing station and are tracing contacts of those infected.

Meanwhile, authorities in the state of Victoria notched a 17th straight day without any new cases on Monday, after they battled a major outbreak in Melbourne earlier this year.

South Australia On Alert As Adelaide COVID-19 Cluster Grows
A quarantine hotel breach also caused an outbreak in Melbourne
Getty Images

Australia had seen cases near zero after beating back the second wave in Victoria. Its outbreak also began from a quarantine hotel breach.

South Australia's chief health officer Nicola Spurrier said that quarnatine hotels posed the highest risk.

"It's obvious that the highest risk in Australia right now is this risk of (virus) importation in our quarantine hotels", she said.

State Premier Steven Marshall said that no effort will be spared in the battle against the virus.

"We are facing our biggest test to date", he said.

"We are working around the clock to stay ahead of this cluster - no effort will be spared."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in