Balmain Woolworths’ staff are in lockdown after a worker who recently returned from Victoria tested positive for COVID-19.

The incident comes amid widespread concern travellers from Victorian hotspots are being allowed to move about freely without being tested.

Nine News reporter Chris O’Keefe told Mark Levy the protocols to stop Victorians importing coronavirus over the border have failed.

“They stopped five people just this morning who voluntarily declared … when they landed in Sydney that they had just been to the Melbourne hotspots.

“So God knows how many of them have gone through over the last five to ten days!”

Chris revealed the supermarket worker had originally flown to Melbourne from Bangladesh and tested positive to COVID-19 on day four of this two-week mandatory hotel quarantine.

“Ten days later when his 14 days are up, Victoria Health says ‘oh no worries, you look OK, off you go to Sydney’.

“He does two shifts at a very popular, busy and cramped Woolworths in Balmain, coughing and spluttering … he gets another test and hello, it tests positive!

“He was never tested when he left hotel quarantine, he was just allowed to do it.

“I don’t understand for the life of me why there aren’t more strict controls given the outbreak we’re seeing in Victoria.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview

Image: Getty