A house party in Wanniassa attended by up to 150 teenagers on Halloween eve has been identified as a COVID superspreading event, generating clusters across a number of schools and colleges.
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ACT Health has identified 33 cases connected to the event. This includes secondary contacts and instances of onward transmission.
Police officers responded to reports of an assault at a home in Wanniassa about 11.40pm on October 30.
Officers found a large number of teenagers. Anecdotal reports say there were as many as 150 in the house and along the street.
Police closed the party and told all the young people to leave.
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One young person was found so intoxicated that police, concerned for his welfare, took him into protective custody for his own safety.
The homeowner, as the adult responsible for the residence and who was at the gathering, was issued a Criminal Infringement Notice for breaching ACT public health directions and fined $1000.
Under health restrictions in force at the time, only 10 visitors were permitted in a single residence aside from those who lived there.
Last week, a number of secondary schools emerged with exposures including Erindale College, St Clare's College, Canberra Girls Grammar, and the Canberra Girls Grammar boarding house.
On Wednesday, ACT chief health officer Dr Kerryn Coleman said many young people who have contracted the virus did so at gatherings outside of school and then attended school while infectious.
However, ACT Health said it was "not appropriate ... to comment on specific details relating to events at private residences".
A parent of a student boarding at the Canberra Girls Grammar School has told The Canberra Times that a student left the boarding house under the guise of spending the weekend with her family but is understood to have attended the same Halloween party.
The student was fully vaccinated but is understood to have been infectious in the boarding house for six days.
This week Dr Coleman said the majority of COVID-19 infections in Canberra's schools had been contracted outside school and a cluster of cases associated with the Wanniassa School junior campus has grown to 50, including household contacts and tertiary infections.
Since the Wanniassa house party incident, police investigations have continued in an attempt to identifying who was there and whether any other offences were committed.
The person who was reported to have been assaulted was not located, nor the offender.
Meanwhile, another Canberra primary school has discovered a person was on campus while infectious with COVID-19.
Someone attended Mawson Primary School while infectious from Monday, November 1, to Thursday, November 4, according to the ACT government COVID-19 exposure website.
An ACT Health spokesman confirmed the school had not closed due to the exposure.
"ACT Health became aware of a case attending Mawson Primary School on Tuesday, November 9. The school was notified that same day," the spokesman said.
Canberra no longer has any active cases of COVID-19 in hospital for the first time in months, but at least one patient remains there from the effects of the virus.
There was no one in ACT hospitals with an active case of COVID-19 as at 8pm on Tuesday. It is the first time since August 20 that no one has been listed as an active case in a Canberra hospital.
However, the patient who was reported as being on a ventilator in intensive care on Monday remains in hospital, ACT Health said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
"This individual remains in hospital; however, they have been 'cleared' or released from isolation in accordance with the national guidelines. This means they are no longer an 'active' or infectious case of COVID-19 and as a result, they are no longer included in our COVID-19 hospitalisation figures," ACT Health said in a statement.
"We have not changed how we report our hospitalisation figures. This is consistent with how they have been presented since the start of the pandemic. We have changed our wording to present this in a clearer manner to the community."
Earlier, questions were raised about ACT Health's changed phrasing in the reporting of hospitalisations following Tuesday's update.
On Wednesday, it reported no "active cases in ACT hospitals", compared with referring to "patients in ACT hospitals" previously.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration on Wednesday revealed Moderna had become the second mRNA vaccine to apply for provisional approval for children aged 6 to 11.
The TGA is considering an application from Pfizer to vaccinate children aged under 12, with Health Minister Greg Hunt last month saying the process would be expedited.
Moderna has also submitted an application to the TGA for its vaccine to join Pfizer in the national booster rollout.
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