Logan women most likely cause of COVID clusters: Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young says after extensive testing, it appears two Logan women who visited Melbourne were the cause of numerous clusters in the state’s southeast. Meanwhile, Dr Young has defended the Palaszczuk Government’s tough funeral restrictions.
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Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has defended the Palaszczuk Government’s tough funeral restrictions while revealing the most likely cause of southeast Queensland’s COVID-19 clusters were the two Logan women who travelled to Melbourne.
Dr Young said the clusters linked to the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, Brisbane Youth Detention Centre and Ipswich Hospital were all under control.
She said she expected to be able to declare the detention centre cluster over within the next few days.
Dr Young said for the first time she was confident the cause of those clusters were two women from Logan who contracted COVID in Melbourne then allegedly lied when they returned to Queensland.
“That’s the most likely scenario and even more likely after doing more testing out there and not finding any other chains of transmission,” Dr Young said.
“We didn’t find the first case in this cluster, we found a subsequent case and that’s why it’s taken longer to get on top of it,” Dr Young said.
She said more than one million tests of COVID-19 have been done in Queensland since the pandemic started.
Dr Young said a team of 80 people were assessing thousands of exemption requests every day.
She said she was personally assessing exemption requests when she was getting up to 100 a day but as the requests soared, she handed over the role to the new team.
She now gets thousands of requests every day.
“Every single one of those exemption requests are taken very seriously,” she said.
Dr Young defended Queensland’s tough border restrictions, particularly when it came to allowing grieving family into the state for funerals.
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It followed an extraordinary blow up between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk today over a young Canberra woman who was blocked from attending her father’s funeral at Mount Gravatt today, instead forced to remain in hotel quarantine.
An emotional Mr Morrison pleaded with the Premier to give her an exemption to which the Premier shot back she would ‘not be bullied’ and it was the decision of the Chief Health Officer.
Dr Young said tough restrictions on funerals were necessary considering the COVID-19 risk those gatherings posed
“While I understand the emotional toll it is taking on people who are coming to Queensland for the funeral of loved ones … they can’t do that until they’ve been in quarantine for 14 days because the last thing I want is an outbreak at a funeral,” she said.
“By definition, there are older people attending funerals.
“They’re in a very, very risky environment for spread.”
The chief health officer said funerals were extremely high risk for the transmission of the pandemic virus with several recent clusters in Sydney traced back to funerals.
“I do not want to see in Queensland any risk of people attending a funeral, getting exposed, getting COVID-19 and then going back to a vulnerable setting,” Dr Young said.
She said one of the exemptions for leaving an aged care facility was to attend a funeral.
“Australia’s numbers who’ve died of COVID-19 have reached over 700 Australians. A lot of them have happened in aged care facilities,” she said.
“That’s something that I am absolutely adamant, I will do everything I possibly can to stop happening in Queensland.
“Every single death is a really difficult death for someone, including me. Having said that, I also understand the awful situation for people who are coming into Queensland from interstate and overseas who can’t attend a funeral to mourn their loved one.”
Dr Young said Queensland had processes in place to help those people farewell close family members.
“If they wish to and the funeral home can support it, and a large number have, they can go and have a private farewell with their loved one in the funeral home,” Dr Young said.
“That can be done and has been done a number of times very safely due to the support of the funeral home.”
Dr Young said she believed Queensland Health’s strict quarantine measures, which had prevented some people from attending funerals, had helped keep the state safe during the once-in-a-century pandemic.
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When Dr Young was asked by reporters if she was holding a press conference to take the heat off Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk over the funeral standoff, she said: “I just wanted to give some information because I haven’t stood up for a few days because I’ve been very, very busy trying to get on top of these clusters”.
Dr Young said she was constantly looking at allowing exemptions for people who would support the economy including film and entertainment, agriculture, resources and mining.
‘If it is safe, I look at how it could be done,” she said.
She also said she would look at exemptions for anything that would benefit the community and the economy.
It comes after there were no new cases of coronavirus in Queensland overnight as the state recorded a new milestone.
Meanwhile, Queensland health workers have secured extra leave for their hard work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ms Palaszczuk said there had been more than 10,000 tests in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of tests since the pandemic began to one million.
It means there are now 27 active cases in Queensland.
Health Minister Steven Miles said it took about six months to reach half a million tests, but only an additional six weeks to reach the one million mark.
Ms Palaszczuk again urged Queenslanders to keep up with the social distancing.
“I want to congratulate and thank Queenslanders for their continuing good work in confronting the pandemic,” she said.
“We must continue to meet the threat of COVID-19 head on.
“We must remember to care for each other and if we continue to do that, we will get through this.”
Health workers, including doctors, nurses, public health teams, ambos, pathology workers and health professionals, will get an extra two days’ leave for their efforts during the crisis after police and teachers were also granted extra holidays.
It also includes support staff like cleaners and kitchen staff.
Mr Miles said Queensland had seen unbelievable support from members of the community, but the best line of defence had always been health care workers.
“They have put themselves between us and this dreadful disease,” he said.
“They have done incredible amounts of testing and cared for Queenslanders who became ill.
“Their outstanding work is the reason we have prevented much greater devastation in our state.”
Today’s announcement comes after Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union acting secretary Sandra Eales told The Courier-Mail two days ago that the union had received no commitment from the Government about the additional pandemic leave.
Nine cases were confirmed in the state on Wednesday, including an entire family of five linked to the Queensland Corrective Services Academy and a year 11 student from St Edmund’s College in Ipswich.
It was the biggest spike to the state’s daily COVID-19 tally in weeks, however, Ms Palaszczuk told parliament on Wednesday the majority of the cases had “already been in quarantine”.
The school will remain closed until next week and exams have been postponed as Queensland Health make their way through the contact tracing list linked to the state’s newest COVID-19 cases.
It’s understood the boy last visited the school on Monday for an exam and tested positive to the virus on Tuesday afternoon, sparking fears he may have been infectious.
Three cases confirmed on Wednesday were linked to the Ipswich Hospital, including two healthcare workers and one of their children.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said on Wednesday there were 12,075 tests the previous day, which was a “wonderful effort from Queenslanders”.
“Our contact tracers have been working through the night, and Queensland Health will have updates on contact tracing information as it comes to hand,” he said.
St Edmund’s principal Ray Celegato said the school was working with Queensland Health to contact students and staff who could have been exposed to the infection; however, he suggested that number was probably low.
Senior students are in an exam period, so year 11 exams and year 12 mock Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) exams will be delayed until next week or, if the school is unable to reopen, until next term.
Mr Celegato said the college held its “Rookies” open day last Friday for prospective students; however, as it was a pupil free day, the students in attendance were not considered a risk.
Some students also competed in sport against St Patrick’s College Shornclfife on Saturday.
“Queensland Health will be talking directly to St Patrick’s around the possible exposure to their students, but as I say I would believe the risk is low around that particular time,” Mr Celegato said.