Brisbane lockdown: Tennis centre owner disputes Qld Health claims

The owner of a Brisbane tennis centre visited by a Covid-positive schoolboy has accused Queensland Health of needlessly panicking parents.

The school-aged boy infected with Covid-19 only visited Shaw Park Tennis Centre for a total of six minutes and did not attend a school holiday tennis clinic despite reports, claims the centre’s owner.

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the younger brother of the 19-year-old unvaccinated receptionist at The Prince Charles Hospital became infectious on June 26 before attending a school holiday tennis clinic throughout the day on Monday, sparking fears from hundreds of parents whose children were also at the clinic.

Tennis centre owner Mark Bloomfield said the boy and his mother were in the shop’s section of the centre for a total of six minutes, and that Queensland Health “haven’t checked the facts”.

“We have CCTV footage proving the pair entered at 4:29pm and left at 4:35pm,” Mr Bloomfield said.

“He and his mother came into the shop to pick up a pair of shoes that he had pre-purchased online.

Shaw Park Tennis Centre at Wooloowin. Picture: David Clark

“He was in contact with one member of the staff, who served him, but there was no

transaction.

“After he was happy with the shoes, they left.”

The Queensland Health website says the boy was present in the Wooloowin centre between 4:20pm and 4:40pm on June 28.

Mr Bloomfield said that the centre had been receiving calls all day from worried parents of the children who had attended the holiday camp earlier in the day.

“We had 100 kids who were at the holiday clinic in the morning, and their mums are ringing up thinking their child had direct contact when in fact he wasn’t even there,” he said.

“There’s a lot of scaremongering going on as a result.

“It just worries me that potentially some of the information being published is not 100 per cent correct.”

Mr Bloomfield said there was a lot of miscommunication between Queensland Health and the venue when it came to what next steps his staff should take.

“As a business owner, I didn’t get any communication from Queensland Health,” he said.

He said the department had called the venue on Tuesday, and spoken to the staffer who served the infectious boy.

“They told him to get a Covid test at the end of his shift but not immediately, which I thought was surprising,” Mr Bloomfield said.

The testing centre that the staffer went to was closed, and Queensland Health told him to isolate at home and they would send someone to his house to test him.

“No one showed up, so he called Queensland Health and they said, ‘oh, we forgot about you’ and sent him to another testing centre,” Mr Bloomfield said.

Shaw Park Tennis Centre also supplied Queensland Health with the contact details of the other eight staff members that were doing stock take on Monday, but they have not received any contact back.

Mr Bloomfield said he had called multiple times on Wednesday to clarify the situation and for help in regards to managing his staff and the parents of the camp.

“Both times they told me someone would get back to me and they never did,” he said.

“Some of the information that you see on TV isn’t 100 per cent right, it hasn’t been clarified properly.”

A spokesperson for Queensland Health said that due to early press conferences, sometimes location information was preliminary and was clarified throughout the day on its contact tracing site.

“Due to possible public health risks, we want to be as open and transparent as possible with the information we have available at the time,” she said.

She confirmed the Shaw Park Tennis Centre remained listed as an exposure site between 4.20pm and 4.40pm.

“We take a cautious approach to exposure sites to ensure anyone who may have been near the confirmed case is captured within the potential exposure period,” the spokesperson said.