The ACT has recorded two new cases of COVID-19, taking the total active cases in the Territory to six.
One of the new cases is a 14-year-old student at Gold Creek School who attended school while infectious from Monday to Wednesday this week. Authorities are as yet unable to determine where the infection came from and the student’s test results have been sent for urgent genomic sequencing. Authorities say the student has no known travel history outside the ACT or identified link to the current exposure locations.
The other four cases are all linked to the Territory’s initial COVID-19 case, three of which were announced yesterday. The student will be included in tomorrow’s official case numbers.
All students, staff and visitors to the Gold Creek School junior campus, senior campus, Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School, Out of School Hours care service, early learning childhood centre and construction workers at the site will be classified as contacts of the student.
ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry said the families of these people will also be considered contacts.
“All impacted staff and families are being contacted today through the education directorate working closely with ACT Health,” she said.
Ms Berry said a pop-up testing centre is being planned for the contacts of the Gold Creek School, of which there are about 1,500-2,000.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said as testing continues and the list of exposure sites grows, the ACT should expect to see more cases.
“I think the pattern of outbreaks across the country indicate that there would be an expectation of further cases,” he said.
Yesterday was a record testing day for the ACT, with more than 2,000 tests conducted. Demand for testing surged with blown-out wait times and people turned away from testing sites.
ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said authorities were working to increase testing capacity, with the pop-up site at Gold Creek and a new facility for the Southside in the works.
“Today our priority is getting set up at Gold Creek,” she said. “We are continuing to work towards the development of a Southside testing facility as well, but our priority today has to be that known case and the people around that case.”
Mr Barr says authorities are still working through the details of the initial case and how he came to contract the virus, but ACT Health has confirmed he is infected with the delta variant.
“We anticipate having some further information in due course … our focus right now is on ensuring we get info that can inform the community on potential exposure sites and can allow us to identify close contacts.
“There will be time to examine the backstory … but right now that’s not the most important thing.”
ACT Chief Health Officer Dr Kerryn Coleman said authorities would reassess the lockdown early next week to determine whether it would need to be extended.
There are currently no COVID-19 patients in Canberra’s hospitals.
