Coronavirus Qld: Health Minister delivers latest virus case update

Health Minister Steven Miles has told Scott Morrison to “back off” after Queensland confirmed no new COVID-19 cases overnight once again, saying the state’s success at keeping cases so low is proof the border closure decision is the right one.

Health Minister Steven Miles has confirmed Queensland has no new COVID-19 cases overnight, following the announcement the state would open its border to 152,000 people in five NSW shires.

It means there are just five active cases in the state, with just 1153 known cases occurring since the coronavirus pandemic began.

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Mr Miles said Queensland could be on track to have zero number of cases all the way through to October.

“Let’s keep it up, let’s keep going. Let’s make sure that it’s our economy that rebounds not this virus,” he said.

Mr Miles said it was “no secret” the Prime Minister did not support Queensland’s strict border protection measures and said the withdrawal of the Australian Defence Force from manning the borders was “disappointing and will make the job of police harder”.

He said the defence force “should not be used as a bargaining chip” in the Federal Government’s “continued attack” on Queensland’s border laws.

“Our policy has worked and they should back off,” he said.

Asked about reopening of the Queensland to NSW, he repeated that a decision would be made at the end of the month.

“We’ll continue to monitor NSW and Victoria,” he said. “We’ll ease those restrictions as we can safely do so.”

Mr Miles said the decision on borders was up to the Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young under the law.

Mr Miles conceded that opening up to parts of NSW still created a risk.

He said people from Sydney could still holiday at Byron Bay at the same time as people from Brisbane, for example.

He said he had been “nervous all year”.

“We need to be cautious,” he said. “What you’ve seen is a very cautious, but measured approach.”

He said extending the “border bubble” to more shires in northern NSW “does create a risk”.

Asked about the Federal Government’s COVIDsafe app, Mr Miles said it had not been very useful in Queensland.

“The app hasn’t been particularly useful but our public health unit staff have been incredibly useful.

“Not enough people downloaded the app. We never achieved the level of density with the app.”

It comes as octogenarian Richard Misior, a passenger on the Ruby Princess who developed COVID-19, moved to a rehabilitation ward at the Gold Coast University Hospital today.

He’s Queensland’s longest-surviving COVID-19 hospital patient, spending 77 days in intensive care.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Wednesday announced Queensland would throw open its borders to five New South Wales Shires from next week.

She said the shires of Byron, Ballina, the City of Lismore, Richmond Valley, which includes Casino and Evans Head, and Glen Innes would be added to the border zone from 1am on October 1.