Coronavirus WA: Eight more COVID-19 cases confirmed among Al Kuwait sheep ship crew

Another eight crew members from the Al Kuwait livestock vessel have tested positive to COVID-19 — bringing the total onboard the troubled ship to 20.

Health Minister Roger Cook revealed that all 48 crew have now been tested but the ten currently remaining on the ship all returned negative results.

He added that they may however face retesting in the coming days if any of them begin to show symptoms.

It means that WA now has 25 confirmed cases, including four Victorians who returned from overseas travel earlier this month.

The remaining case is a Western Australian who travelled from overseas and had previously been listed as a case from interstate. He also added there were no active cases in WA hospitals.

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Speaking at a media conference this afternoon, where Premier Mark McGowan revealed a raft of restrictions being eased, he said the lack of cases away from the Al Kuwait was evidence those restrictions had worked.

“It highlights our quarantine measures, our hard border and our isolation strategy are all working the way they should be,” Mr Cook said

“We still do not have sustained community transmission in Western Australia and we continue to test widely.”

There were 937 new tests conducted yesterday bringing the total in the State to 85,738 and an additional 1000 tests conducted on asymptomatic members of the community as part of the project DETECT snapshot.

The testing blitz was rolled out for the first time yesterday and tests people at random in selected cohorts in the community.

Mr Cook added that program would continue to ramp up over the next two weeks so that they could “get a better understanding of potential COVID-19 that may be in the community.”

The new cases on board the Al Kuwait brings WA’s running total to 585 cases. Of those 551 have recovered.