A taxi driver has said he was forced into Howard Springs quarantine and missed two weeks of work after the Northern Territory Government engaged him to drive a man infected with the Delta strain of COVID-19 to the facility without telling him of the man’s infected status, and also allowed him to take regular passengers until his shift finished.
Katherine’s lockdown has been lifted, after no new cases of COVID-19 were detected in the community, following the mysterious case of one infected man who arrived in town on Sunday who does not appear to have infected anyone else.
The lockdown for the Greater Darwin region will be lifted at noon, but will remain in place in Katherine for the next 24 hours, the government has said.
A second straight day of no new COVID cases has health officials optimistic the Greater Darwin and Katherine lockdown could end on time Thursday, Chief Minister Michael Gunner has said, even while authorities struggle to determine how the index case contracted the virus.
Health authorities say there have been no new cases of COVID-19 detected overnight, with 1846 tests completed yesterday, but they are still contact tracing to determine close contacts of the American man in Katherine who sparked the snap lockdown.
The Greater Darwin region and Katherine has gone into a three-day lockdown as of noon on Monday, after a man in his 30s travelling from Sydney tested positive for COVID-19 overnight.
A 33-year-old Queensland man has been arrested for allegedly breaching quarantine rules, NT Police said, and then apparently released on bail into the community.
The movements in the community of a man who has now tested positive to COVID-19 “in the last 24 hours” but who arrived in Darwin on Tuesday onboard a yacht from Indonesia have not been provided to the public by the NT Health Department.
NT Health authorities are unsure if viral COVID-19 fragments detected in Darwin wastewater samples taken from the Ludmilla treatment plant on Wednesday are from active cases or from someone who has recovered.
Territorians in the Greater Darwin region and Alice Springs will no longer have to wear masks following the lifting of the remaining COVID-19 restrictions as of 1pm today, the NT Government has announced.
Two more mine workers from the Tanami mine site that sparked the NT’s COVID-19 lockdown late last month have tested positive for coronavirus – 12 days after being quarantined at Howard Springs, the government said.
UPDATED: NT Police have shut down a Nightcliff takeaway food outlet, later identified as Souvlaki Grill and Chill, after an inspection Tuesday night allegedly discovered three staff members working without masks and the establishment not utilising proper COVID-19 check-in controls.
