About 200 people in Tasmania have been identified as having contact with an identified COVID-19 case in the state.
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It was revealed on Thursday that a 31-year-old man from NSW had breached interstate stay-at-home orders and flown into Tasmania on August 2.
He entered Launceston Airport without a pass for authorised travel, breaching the state's Emergency Management Act, although he had applied to travel to the state.
The man was then directed into hotel quarantine and required to take a COVID-19 test the following day.
The man decided to leave Tasmania and travel back to NSW on August 4.
The Emergency Management Act allows a person to leave hotel quarantine for the purposes of leaving the state.
The man returned a positive COVID-19 test on Thursday on the same day he started to develop symptoms of the infection.
Premier Peter Gutwein said the case was not being treated as a case of community transmission as the man had been in hotel quarantine during his time in Tasmania.
Public Health director Mark Veitch said it had formed a good idea of all the movements of the infected person and those who may have been exposed to him.
He said anyone who would have been in contact with the man would have been wearing a mask as required.
"It's our hope that those measures will very substantially mitigate the risk of leakage to the Tasmanian community," Dr Veitch said.
Dr Veitch said it was expected to be known whether the man was carrying the Delta strain of COVID-19 as early as today.
A taxi driver who transported the man during his time in Tasmania has been identified by Public Health Services and is in quarantine with his family.
Public Health director Mark Veitch said it had formed a good idea of all the movements of the infected person and those who may have been exposed to him.
He said the person left Sydney on flight VA807 to Melbourne and then flight VA1634 from Melbourne to Launceston.
Dr Veitch said they had been taken from Launceston Airport to Peppers Hotel in a secure bus.
He said the man had travelled in the backseat of the taxi and had been wearing a face mask when going back to the airport.
He said anyone who was at Launceston Airport on Wednesday from 9am to 10am needed to isolate and contact the public health hotline.
Dr Veitch said the virus had been detected in the man at fairly low concentration levels.
"We think they were probably becoming infectious when they arrived in Tasmania and were probably slightly more infectious by the time they left," he said.
Dr Veitch said anyone who would have been in contact with the man would have been wearing a mask as required.
About 200 people have identified been identified through contact tracings, including 100 people who were on the Melbourne to Launceston flight.
"In almost all of those settings, if not all of them, people have measures in place - mask-wearing, infection control, social distancing - that have been in place for many months to make movement of people as safe as possible through those corridors so it doesn't expose a risk to the public or the workers," Dr Veitch said.
"But when this happens in Tasmania, we just don't want to take any chances.
"It's our hope that those measures will very substantially mitigate the risk of leakage to the Tasmanian community."
Dr Veitch said it was expected to be known whether the man was carrying the Delta strain of COVID-19 as early as today.
He said the man would not face any penalties in Tasmania as he had not breached any public health orders in the state.
Political reporter for Australian Community Media, based in Hobart.
Political reporter for Australian Community Media, based in Hobart.
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