When Victorian authorities described the nature of virus spread in the community in early June they used two terms — “stranger-to-stranger transmission” and “fleeting contact”.
The phrases were used to inform the manner in which the Delta variant has been passed along between individuals who had not been in close contact.
Authorities, including Victoria’s Covid-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar, said there were as many as five cases of stranger-to-stranger transmission.
“This is very, relatively speaking, fleeting contact,” he told reporters. “They do not know each other’s names and that is very different from what we have seen before.”
It was a similar story in NSW last week when Premier Gladys Berejiklian described “scarily fleeting” encounters between strangers that resulted in covid being passed from one person to another.
RELATED: NSW records 12 new local cases
Examples included two people walking past each other at Myer at Bondi Junction — a transmission that was captured on CCTV.
In Queensland, Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young described a similar phenomenon.
“With the Delta variant, we’re seeing very fleeting contact leading to transmission,” Dr Young said.
“At the start of this pandemic, I spoke about 15 minutes of close contact being a concern. Now it looks like it’s five to 10 seconds that’s a concern. The risk is so much higher now than it was only a year ago.”
But doubt has been cast over Australia’s use of the term “fleeting” to describe the way the highly-infectious Delta variant is spreading.
As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, World Health Organisation officials are not convinced there is enough evidence to say covid can spread within five seconds.
Dr Mike Ryan, director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, told a news conference from Geneva on Saturday morning that more work needed to be done to analyse the speed of spread.
“How much virus do you need to be contaminated by or inhale before you reach a dose that causes you to have an infection?” Dr Ryan said.
“That’s not even known for the previous strains and it’s not fully understood for these newer strains — Delta strain included.”
Victorian health authorities in May said two people — a woman who visited a Metricon display home in the suburb of Mickleham and a man who visited the Brighton Beach Hotel — had both been infected by “fleeting” contact.
A 14-day lockdown followed soon after only for authorities to reclassify both cases.
An expert panel said neither person had been infected and that both had recorded false positives.
The Delta variant, which originated in India, is causing problems in countries as far apart as China, the UK, Brazil and Australia.
NSW on Saturday recorded 12 new cases of coronavirus in the community.
There were 29 locally acquired cases reported in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday night, but 17 of those were announced on Friday.
Speaking to press on Saturday morning, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian stressed that NSW may need to extend the lockdown orders, as cases were identified beyond the four locked down LGAs in the Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick and City of Sydney council areas.
“I said a few days ago that this is the scariest time Sydney, New South Wales, has been during the course of the pandemic, and I mean that,” she said.
“I will confirm that I will be holding a crisis cabinet meeting today to discuss the health advice with my colleagues and senior public servants so that we can advise the community if we need to take any further action.
