COVID-positive NSW man left Hobart hotel quarantine after enter Tasmania without G2G PASS

The 31-year-old from New South Wales arrived in Tasmania from Melbourne at 8.30pm on Monday on flight JQ 715 despite having been refused for a G2G PASS twice.

He was placed in quarantine at the Travelodge Hotel in Hobart due to arriving on the last flight of the day, to be returned the following day, according to Premier Peter Gutwein.

The man was reported missing by security "mid-afternoon" on Tuesday and police were notified.

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Police found him at 4.45pm on Tuesday in Hobart's outer northern suburbs and he was taken back to hotel quarantine and tested on the way at the Royal Hobart Hospital, which resulted in an unclear result on Tuesday evening requiring "further follow up".

The result was then confirmed as positive at 11.15am on Wednesday.

Director of Public Health Mark Veitch said contact tracers were working to identify all close and casual contacts on Wednesday afternoon, with further details to come.

"They have identified a number of settings where contact tracing will be focused," he said.

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"Firstly, the plane that this person flew from Melbourne to Hobart on on Monday night has been identified. We will have the flight manifest and we will contact all the people on that flight.

"Having come out of Melbourne, it's quite likely that most of the people on that flight will already be in one or another form of quarantine."

Dr Veitch said the flight had "quite a small number of people on it", with fewer than a dozen passengers.

"We're also in the process of identifying the contact this person had in suburban Hobart after they left quarantine, and those people will be quarantined and tested," he said.

Dr Veitch confirmed the man "had spent some time in the community", but there was "no public interest" in telling the public which suburb the man was found in.

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The man has been fined $3000 for breaching quarantine and entering the state without approval.

Premier Peter Gutwein said it was a disappointing situation.

"It disappoints me greatly that when the majority of Tasmanians do the right thing ... people do the wrong thing and put others at risk," he said.

Tasmania Police Assistant Commissioner Donna Adams said the response from Public Health authorities - including contact tracing - would be the first priority before the breach was further investigated.

"We're conducting a review with our stakeholders to determine the circumstances surrounding the breach of quarantine, but at the moment, it's important that Public Health takes the response to this situation so that the appropriate contact tracing is conducted and then the review will be obviously progressed," she said.

"We'll look at all the circumstances surround this individual's movements after the Public Health response has concluded.

"This is early stages."

State-run hotel quarantine is contracted to private security, but Assistant Commissioner Adams said police had few concerns about how it had operated so far.

"We've had a very successful program in terms of our hotel quarantine ... with very minimal concerns around the way in which quarantine has been managed in those facilities," she said.

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