Newcastle woman tests positive to COVID-19 after breaking isolation to travel to NSW Mid North Coast
Another regional NSW community is being put on COVID-19 alert after a Newcastle woman broke isolation orders to travel to the region.
The young woman travelled more than 160km north from Newcastle to the coastal community of Tuncurry, near Forster on the Mid North Coast, last Thursday August 5 – the same day as Newcastle went into a snap COVID-19 lockdown.
NSW Health has confirmed the woman had been identified as a close contact of a positive coronavirus case at the time.
The woman had a COVID-19 test on the same day, which returned a negative result.
She took another test on Monday August 9, which has come back positive.
The woman is now in isolation in Tuncurry, along with her household.
“NSW Police have been in contact with the person and their household contacts to ensure they are all following isolation requirements,” a Hunter-New England LHD spokesperson said in a statement.
All of the woman’s household contacts returned a negative COVID-19 test result on August 9 and have been isolating from this date.
The stay-at-home orders had been scheduled to lift tomorrow but have now been extended to August 20.
NSW Health has advised that the Newcastle woman’s case will not appear in Tuncurry on the NSW Health website, as it is being recorded in the Newcastle figures due to the woman’s residential address.
