Coronavirus Queensland: NSW cases jeopardise border reopening
As Queensland records another day of no new COVID-19 cases, community transmission cases in NSW continue to grow, putting the planned QLD-NSW border reopening under threat. Now Health Minister Steven Miles has accused the NSW Government of ‘giving up’ on the coronavirus fight.
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Queensland’s Health Minister said it was “disappointing” to see NSW effectively “give up” on the goal of eliminating community COVID-19 transmission.
Queensland has recorded another day of no new COVID-19 cases marking 28 days since the latest case in the South Brisbane cluster.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said there are only four active cases across the state.
He said positive wastewater results of COVID-19 continued to be found in Cannonvale and he urged residents in the area to get tested.
The wastewater results come after Mr Miles revealed on Thursday that 14 travelling show workers were discovered in Mackay after having been in Melbourne.
He said three further show support workers were identified and were on their way out of the state.
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Despite this, Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said she could declare the latest Queensland cluster over.
“This is an excellent outcome for Queensland,” she said.
As part of a road map to COVID-normal announced by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last week, it stipulated the state’s borders would reopen to NSW residents on November 1, provided there had been no cases of “unlinked” community transmission for 28 days.
There were 10 new cases of Covid recorded in NSW today.
While Mr Miles said it was promising to hear on Friday that New Zealand had eliminated their community transmission, he hit out at NSW’s attempts.
“They (New Zealand) now join Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT all having no community transmission,” Mr Miles said.
“It underlines how disappointing it is to not see the NSW premier not share that aspiration for that target … She has effectively given up on the goal of 28 days of no unlinked cases.”
Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington today refused to say whether she thinks Queensland’s stringent border criteria was achievable, following days of criticism from her southern LNP counterparts who have slammed the Palaszczuk Government.
She said she accepted the health advice which stipulates there must be 28 days without community transmission in other states for Queensland’s borders to reopen.
Pressed on how she would be different to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who Ms Frecklington has previously accused of politicising the border closures, the LNP Leader said she was focused on making sure Queenslanders were kept safe.
“Those are the people that we should be concentrating on,” she said.
“Right now in Townsville in the last 12 months, 1400 people have lost their jobs under Annastacia Palaszczuk’s incompetence.”
Ms Frecklington also refused to say whether she thought NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was wrong, after Ms Berejiklian claimed it was highly unlikely NSW would ever achieve 28 days of no community transmission.
“What I’m focused on right now is the health and wellbeing of Queenslanders and keeping Queenslanders safe,” she said.
She said her plan was to listen to the health advice.
Dr Young said health authorities in NSW has been able to find links between previously reported Covid cases and seven out of the eight cases found yesterday.
She said five of today’s cases had already been traced and the others were returned travellers and were not an issue.
“Those five cases today, I understand, are all related to healthcare facilities,” she said.
Dr Young said she was feeling more confident now that contacts were being traced, but the month still had a long way to go.
“We will just have to watch and see what happens.”
Dr Young said no decision on the borders would be made until the end of the month.
It comes as the Chief Health Officer announced Logan man Gary Ralph, who underwent brain surgery in Sydney and was forced to quarantine in a hotel, could now quarantine at home.
Mr Miles said the Queensland government had not been “bullied” by the Prime Minister throughout the pandemic, and was not aware of any federal intervention in the decision to let Mr Ralph return to his home to quarantine.
The border debate remains up in the air after NSW recorded more cases than Victoria yesterday.
An entire floor worth of employees at a Sydney office building have been urged to self-isolate after a co-worker tested positive for the virus, ABC News reported.
The new figures come as a slew of public health alerts were issued for Sydney on Thursday.
On Thursday NSW announced 12 new cases of the virus with eight of those locally acquired, sending contact tracers into overdrive.