Australia’s Chief Medical Officer has apologised for his comments that an “illegal dinner party” contributed to the state’s outbreak. “I apologise to Tasmanian health workers for my comments, and welcome the positive outcome of the investigation,” he said. The north-west has seen a large cluster of COVID-19 cases, with three more health workers diagnosed on Tuesday. When talking about the outbreak during the New Zealand inquiry, Professor Murphy suggested the behaviour of health workers may have contributed. “We thought we were doing really well in the last week and then we had a cluster of 49 cases in a hospital in Tasmania just over the weekend,” he said. “Most of them went to an illegal dinner party of medical workers, we think.” He later walked back the claim, with union representatives saying the “baseless” rumours had distressed frontline health workers. There were reports workers had been verbally abused as a result of the dinner party speculation. At the time, Tasmania’s Director of Public Health Mark Veitch said contact tracing had not verified the claim and earlier this week a police investigation found there was no evidence the dinner party ever happened. Police said investigators had “determined that there is no evidence of such a gathering occurring” and thanked health workers for their assistance in the inquiry.
