A Melbourne man has tested positive to COVID-19, bringing Victoria's run of 55 days of zero community transmission to an end.
The man tested positive in Melbourne after undergoing two weeks of hotel quarantine in Perth.
He was declared a close contact after quarantining in a room at the Mercure Hotel adjacent to a positive case.
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He arrived at Melbourne Airport on Wednesday on Qantas flight QF778, where he was alerted by health authorities he had roomed next to a positive COVID-19 case.
"It would appear that with a mask, he went straight to the airport and was contacted as he was coming off the plane as a primary close contact," Health Minister Martin Foley said.
"He was picked up at the airport by his spouse and returned directly home to his residential location in the eastern suburbs where he lives with three household contacts, his spouse and two children."
It is understood the man isolated separately from his family upon returning home.
He checked in to the Holiday Inn on Flinders Street yesterday, a Melbourne 'health hotel' for COVID-19 international arrivals, to isolate away from his family.
The man, who is asymptomatic, then returned a positive test result at 2am today.
"The public health process of interviewing, testing, following up potential exposure sites is now well underway," Mr Foley said.
His family will be required to isolate for the next 14 days, as contact tracers scramble to determine who else might have come into contact with the man.
Passengers who arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday on QF778 will also need to isolate for the full two weeks and get tested.
Mr Foley assured Victorians the man had done "all of the right things".
"(He) got his gear, went straight home, sat in the back seat, put his mask on all the way home and stayed separate from the rest of the members of his family," he said.
"He's cooperating with our public health team."
Victoria's Department of Health is using CCTV to track the man's movements through the airport to see if he came into contact with anyone.
Mr Foley said the man's case counted as a local infection as he tested positive in Victoria, despite the virus being acquired interstate.
"As the person was positively tested in Melbourne, this brings an end to our run of ... community-free transmission," he said.
