A woman who left the Binjari community and spent time on the streets of Katherine has tested positive for COVID-19, becoming one of 11 more cases that have been recorded overnight.
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Chief Minister Michael Gunner announced on Wednesday that the woman went with a group of three other people from Binjari to Katherine in a taxi before her positive test result came back this morning.
Police were able to locate her within an hour, but Mr Gunner said she had contact with a number of people in Katherine before she was caught.
"Every police resource was used to locate the case. In about an hour they found out about a positive case at large in the community and found her," Mr Gunner said.
"There was a positive case on the streets of Katherine."
Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker said the group walked to a nearby caravan park where they were picked up by the taxi.
"We'll have to work with the CDC [Centre for Disease Control] to identify what exposure may have been in the Caravan Park. When that information comes to the fore that will be up on the website."
The woman did not know she was positive before leaving Binjari, with authorities interviewing her today for contact tracing.
Commissioner Chalker said the group will likely receive fines of $5024.
"What it's now done is immediately impacted at least 12 lives, if not several thousand people living in Katherine. That's how serious this is," he said.
It comes as Mr Gunner announced on Tuesday that Katherine would remain in lockdown until December 4, with the potential to transition into lockout before that date.
Of the other 10 new COVID-19 cases, eight were already in the Howard Springs quarantine facility with five being from Binjari and two being from Robinson River.
The other two were children in quarantine with their father in Katherine East and have since been moved to Howard Springs.
The Katherine McDonald's exposure site has been upgraded from a casual to a close site on November 13 from 11 - 11.25am, with Mr Gunner saying four COVID cases were present during the time period.
"This was McHappy day. It was very busy on that Saturday," he said.
"Investigations have determined that there were four positive cases there at the same time, making it very high risk."
Everyone who was there must now get tested for COVID-19 and isolate for 14 days.
The latest wastewater testing in Katherine East has still come back negative, but wastewater testing in the Katherine Golf Course catchment has returned a negative result.
"We now believe we can link our previous positive cases to the positive reading we had from the weekend, so we are happy with that," Mr Gunner said.
The Binjari wastewater is still positive but the signal isn't as strong as it wasn't a few days ago, so that is good.
"The Rockhole wastewater is negative which is very encouraging."
Following a testing blitz in Katherine during the lockdown, Mr Gunner said more than 5500 tests had been done in Katherine in the last eight days.
"That is mammoth. Thank you to everyone in Katherine getting tested."
Commissioner Chalker moved to dispel some "rumour and innuendo that's going around."
"There's a persistent rumor that there's a positive case in Beswick. That is untrue," he said.
"Also there were some stories going around that emanated from the Cape in Queensland as I understand it about ADF apparently forcibly removing Aboriginal people. Again, that's not true. Certainly it's not the case that's presented in the Northern Territory.
"Just for clarity, everyone is out there trying to help and support people."
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