Western Australia has recorded two new Covid cases after an infected French backpacker visited several locations.
The cases, which were announced on Saturday, come after the state recorded five cases the day before.
Premier Mark McGowan shared on Twitter that both cases are linked to French backpacker who arrived in Perth from Queensland on Sunday, December 12.
Authorities have identified almost 1000 close and casual contacts.
There were 88 backpackers from the hostel at the Old Fire Station in Fremantle, Perth, hauled into hotel quaratine on Friday night after the unvaccinated French traveller stayed in a 12 person dormitory at the hostel.
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WA Premier Mark McGowan has publicly shamed revellers who are ignoring pleas to get tested for Covid ahead of Christmas on Saturday
The backpackers continued to dance on the bus as they were transported to hotel quarantine
Revellers were seen packed together, nursing drinks and dancing in the back courtyard before being taken to hotel quaratine on a bus.
One partygoer was hoisted onto the shoulders of his friend as he pumped his fist into the air to the beat of the music.
Their spirits appeared to remain high as the partygoers were loaded onto a bus and taken to hotel quarantine.
Several backpackers danced in the aisle while their friends sang along to hit 80’s song ’99 Luftballons’.
Old Fire Station’s manager Bruce said he had unsuccessfully pleaded with authorities to keep the backpackers isolating at the hostel instead of a hotel.
‘We’ve been told that we’ve got to possibly vacate all our backpackers and move them into separate isolation effective immediately,’ he told The West Australian.
Footage captured the wild celebration as the young revellers danced along to a DJ set at the Old Fire Station in Fremantle, Perth, on Friday
‘We’ve been running a backpackers over 15 years and you know, we treat all those guys like our kids.’
‘It just feels like they’re trying to rip their home (from them) the day before Christmas.’
The French backpacker could be the reason why Western Australia will be forced to tear down its hard border sooner and abandon its Covid-zero approach.
Premier Mark McGowan locked out much of Australia for months in a zero-Covid strategy that made him popular at home but heavily criticised in other states.
WA was due to open up at 90 per cent vaccination on February 5, but is now facing a potential outbreak that would make keeping the borders closed pointless.
The 25-year-old traveller arrived from Queensland on December 12 – just an hour before WA shut its border to the Sunshine State at 12.01am.
Reveller lets loose at the Christmas Eve bash as 88 backpackers prepared to go into hotel quarantine
Western Australia backpackers who came into contact with an unvaccinated French traveller threw one final Christmas bash before they were bussed into quarantine
He partied at a series of bars and nightspots, staying out until 5am at Perth’s trendy clubs on Saturday night, subsequently forcing hundreds of close contacts into isolation.
Mr McGowan said the next four days would determine if WA had its first cases of community transmission since it locked down over just one case in June.
He immediately slapped an indoor mask mandate on Perth and Peel, closed nightclubs, banned dancing, and cancelled all large events.
The premier admitted he had no idea how the man got in, and questions have been raised about how the unvaccinated backpacker was able to board a plane.
But the explanation is fairly straightforward due to WA’s tiered system of Covid risk that Mr McGowan applied to travellers.
Queensland was at the time Covid-free and classed as a ‘very low risk’ area, meaning there were minimal border controls and no testing, quarantine, or vaccination requirements.
Partygoers celebrating their final hours of freedom before they were bussed into hotel quarantine in Western Australia
Backpackers nursed drinks as they packed together to for one big party on Christmas Eve
Mr McGowan’s government reportedly received legal advice that it would be unable to enforce proof of vaccination rules for travellers from states that were Covid-free.
All travellers from very low risk areas have to do is fill out a G2G pass form with personal information, and submit to a basic health screening at the airport or border.
The rules ramp up dramatically when an area is declared ‘low risk’, with vaccination required along with 14-day self isolation on arrival.
After Queensland recorded a handful of Covid cases, Mr McGowan changed risk to ‘low’, but travellers had hours to make it in before having to isolate.
This unvaccinated young man, who arrived in Australia in January 2020, again just before the borders closed, was one of them.
For 11 days he was active in and around Perth, visiting two nightclubs on Saturday night where he partied on the dancefloor until the club closed at 5am.
Western Australia’s reopening date of February 5 may be ‘redundant’, Mrk McGowan said, now that a Covid outbreak had arrived in Perth
Mr McGowan said more information will be available on December 27 to determine whether the new restrictions such as the city’s mask mandate, should be continued or toughened. Pictured: A Perth resident in the city on Christmas Eve
He also went camping and visited markets, shops and a cinema before he felt ill enough to get swabbed on Wednesday and got his positive result on Thursday.
The man lives with four other people and his girlfriend and was tracked down on Thursday morning at an Airbnb and informed he was positive.
All five, who are unlike him vaccinated, tested negative with rapid antigen tests, but the girlfriend is showing symptoms and waiting on a PCR test.
The premier said ‘hundreds’ of people have already been contacted after potentially being exposed to the case, which experts believe is the Delta variant and not the highly-infectious Omicron strain.
Should enough of them become infected to trigger an outbreak, Mr McGowan admitted the Feburary 5 date could be brought forward, labelling hard borders as ‘redundant’ if cases are already circulating.
‘Obviously if we have community spread of the virus, then we will have to reconsider everything. How we reopen, when we reopen, all those sorts of things,’ he said.
‘The aim was to get to February 5 with over 90 per cent double dose vaccination of over-twelves, before such time as we opened the borders,’ the premier said.
‘But as I’ve said, it’s not easy to make it that far because something could happen.
‘And here we have a very unlikely event has occurred… someone came into Western Australia from Queensland, who was Covid positive, when Queensland had literally a handful of cases when he left that State.’
Mr McGowan this week locked out the entire rest of the country unless they are exempt travellers, who must undergo testing and quarantine for two weeks.
Anyone from Victoria or NSW is completely banned, even for compassionate reasons, under the ‘extreme risk’ category.
Efforts to avoid a full-blown outbreak – and additional restrictions that could be brought in before Mr McGowan throws in the towel – are hampered by the infected man’s movements.
Authorities could not initially locate the Frenchman, who had left the city and was was camping with four friends when police were trying to contact him.
‘Early on, we couldn’t find the backpacker. We couldn’t find him. Didn’t know where he was. He got his test but he’d gone off and we obviously had to track him down and we couldn’t find the four campers,’ the premier said.
‘The four people that he was living with who were out camping. We couldn’t find them.’
‘He is a backpacker who went out ant went to nightclubs, bars, museums, restaurants, and it is in the hundreds. That’s why we are so concerned,’ the premier told reporters.
‘He has been to events where there has been lots of dancing, lots of fun, lots of interaction by lots of people in close proximity. That’s why we are concerned about it.
‘Some people are saying we are go took far in our reaction to this because it is one case, but the venues he has been to and the length of time he has been infectious means we have to take these steps.’
Exposure sites cover the Perth suburbs of Mirrabooka, Joondalup, Girrawheen, Perth CBD, Subiaco, Northbridge, and Scarborough.
He visited the WA Museum on December 16 then hit the Scarborough Sunset Markets and Galway Hooker pub.
The next day he saw a film at Palace Cinema in Raine Square and got a taste of home by dining at Bloody French in Subiaco.
Snap restrictions imposed across Perth and Peel from 6pm by Premier Mark McGowan will last four days despite there being only a handful of cases in the state.
Masks must be worn indoors at all times unless in a home or during vigorous exercise, and are recommended outside when social distancing isn’t possible.
High risk, large public events like music festivals will be cancelled and all nightclubs closed. All dancing will be banned, except for weddings.