Tennis Australia has disputed a statement from Victorian health officials confirming that two tennis players who arrived in Melbourne for the Australian Open have been diagnosed with coronavirus.
An update from the Department of Health and Human Services issued just before 5pm on Tuesday said two players were among three new cases of COVID-19 connected to the Grand Slam.
Tennys Sandgren tested positive for coronavirus in November, but was still shedding the virus in January - illustrating the sensitivity of some tests.Credit:Getty
"The new positive cases linked to the Australian Open involve two players and one non-playing participant," Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said in a statement.
The trio - a woman in her 20s and two men in their 30s - are in hotel quarantine.
Another player was believed to have tested positive on Sunday, Professor Sutton said on Monday.
A fourth case in hotel quarantine, involving a returned traveller in her 30s, was confirmed by Victorian health officials on Tuesday. That case was not connected to the tennis tournament.
When asked specifically whether any players were among the positive cases, Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley said the six cases connected to the tournament did not include any players.
"They [DHHS] report cases when they are acute cases or viral shedding," Mr Tiley said during a press conference soon after the department released its update.
"The acute cases that we have right, in other words the ones that are in the medi-hotel, are six people and they are not the players," he said.
"DHHS will need to confirm that they're viral shedding but I can confirm that they're not in the medi-hotels."
People in hotel quarantine are transferred to a medi-hotel if they test positive to the virus, under Victoria's coronavirus protocols.
In his statement, Professor Sutton also dashed hopes that some tennis players in hard lockdown might have their restrictions eased, after some positive cases were recategorised as people who were shedding the virus, meaning they were not contagious.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews had suggested on Tuesday morning that some of the 70 players confined to their hotel rooms after being deemed close contacts of COVID-19 cases could be released early, because of news that several positive cases had been reclassified.
But Professor Sutton threw cold water on that speculation later in the day.
“While two cases of viral shedding were confirmed yesterday, this does not change broader assessment of the player group in hotel quarantine,” he said in a statement. “As yet, none of the three affected flights have been cleared as a result of the two reclassified cases.”
Professor Sutton said investigations were ongoing to determine if any other cases could be safely reclassified as an earlier infection.
The health department is yet to provide information about how they made the decision to reclassify the cases as instances of viral shedding.
However, experts say there is no routine test to determine if someone is shedding coronavirus, rather than actively infected, which means that the cases were likely reclassified because the people who had tested positive could prove they had contracted coronavirus some time ago and therefore were no longer infectious.
This was the case with American tennis player Tennys Sandgren, who was cleared to fly to Australia last week after a positive COVID test was reviewed by COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria and determined to be a case of viral shedding. He’d previously had coronavirus in November.
The PCR tests typically used in Australia to detect coronavirus are extremely sensitive, to the point that they sometimes can even pick up dead virus, many weeks after the initial positive test.
Leading infectious diseases expert Professor Nigel McMillan said it was possible to grow the virus in the lab to check that the person was not still infectious, such testing was difficult, time-consuming and expensive.
“All health services make the assumption now that unless there's really an underlying immune deficiency [in the patient] … then you wouldn't have any reason to suspect that it is not just virus shedding.”
University of Queensland infectious diseases physician Associate Professor Paul Griffin said investigators typically relied on medical information such as when people had COVID-19 symptoms or had initially tested positive to establish whether they still posed a risk infection.
Australian guidelines allow people to be released from quarantine without a negative test in mild coronavirus cases, if 10 days has passed since their first symptoms or 72 hours after the end of acute illness.
One key exception is those who test positive to the UK strain, who are required to undergo mandatory 14-day quarantine and will generally need a negative PCR test before they are let into the community.
“Based on that definition, where we need to have a negative PCR [test], it's very likely some people will have extended periods of ongoing quarantine,” Associate Professor Griffin said.
Aisha Dow reports on health for The Age and is a former city reporter.
Scott Spits is a sports reporter for The Age
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2021-01-19 06:20:00Z
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