by The state recorded no new cases in the 24 hours up to 8pm Sunday, with the two linked to the Berala cluster discovered after the reporting period.
Experts said leaks from NSW’s hotel quarantine system were inevitable unless the state or federal government imposed tighter controls.
The outbreak has forced organisers to cut crowd capacity at the SCG for the upcoming Australia-India cricket Test.
WA Premier Mark McGowan said since October his state had been doing the heavy lifting on taking in returned travellers, accepting more than NSW on a per capita basis.
His state was taking more than 1000 returned travellers per week, compared to nearly 3000 in NSW.
Last year, Mr McGowan baulked at calls to accept more returned travellers before lifting WA’s cap in late October.
Mr McGowan confirmed NSW had invoiced WA for quarantining its returned residents.
“I don’t think that’s productive,” he said.
He shot down a suggestion from Acting NSW Premier John Barilaro to have returned travellers quarantine in their home states or territories.
“That suggestion is silly, counterproductive, it’s not acting as an Australian,” Mr McGowan said.
In Queensland, Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said five new cases in hotel quarantine emphasised “the importance of keeping a very secure hotel quarantine process in place for Queensland”.
Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious disease expert from the Australian National University, said the only way to guarantee Australia didn’t face anymore outbreaks was to let no one into the country.
“That would be unrealistic and Australians overseas would expect to be repatriated,” Dr Senanayake said.
“It’s not just passengers and tourists who are coming back. It’s also cargo.”
Dr Senanayake suggested more rigorous testing of hotel quarantine staff, pointing to the growing accuracy of rapid tests.
Staff should also be among the first to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
But Dr Senanayake warned there was uncertainty about whether the jab prevented people transmitting the infection.
He also proposed an offshore processing centre.
“Of course, whenever you hear those sorts of words it has all sorts of negative connotations,” Dr Senanayake said.
Dr Chant stressed the worker from hotel quarantine, a patient transport driver, didn’t have symptoms when they visited the bottle shop.
Mr Barilaro ruled out putting the Berala area at the centre of the bottle shop cluster under lockdown.
The driver is believed to have caught COVID-19 off their colleague, who in turn is understood to have caught it off a returning family.
Dr Chant said the driver was wearing protective gear at the time and transport staff had now been separated from mingling as a precaution.
“Obviously whenever we have an incident, it is an appropriate we reflect and see how we can strengthen it,” she said.
“But it is important to note that the risk overseas has certainly been increasing and we have seen more returning travellers test positive in recent times.”
