Queensland records 5804 new Covid cases, hospitalisations climb to record 1078

Queensland has recorded another grim pandemic record while authorities have revealed the alarming statistic behind the state’s Covid deaths.

Almost all Covid deaths in the past two weeks in Queensland have been older people who did not have their booster shots, acting chief health officer Dr Peter Aitken revealed on Sunday.

Queensland recorded 5804 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours while hospitalisations have climbed to a record 1078.

Nineteen people are in intensive care, with 12 on ventilators.

There have also been 110 new flu cases, taking the total active cases to 904, while there are 36 people in hospital due to the flu, three of those in intensive care.

It comes after 7644 new cases and eight deaths on Saturday.

Dr Aitken said 97 per cent of Covid deaths in the past two weeks were people aged over 65, and two-thirds of those didn’t have their booster doses.

“Remember the vaccine is about stopping people getting sick,” Dr Aitken said.

Dr Aitken cautioned that the modelling on future cases was based on data that was up to two weeks’ old.

“It is up to all of us to prove the modelling wrong, in many ways,” he said.

He urged Queenslanders to get vaccinated, wear a mask when you can’t physically distance and stay home when you’re sick.

Acting chief health officer Dr Peter Aitken. Picture: Dan Peled

He said nationally, there were discussions happening around the 7-day isolation period. There has been a push from some states to drop it to five days.

“We will work with our interstate colleagues to get that final decision,” he said.

Dr Aitken said modelling on hospitalisations growing in coming weeks did not have to come to pass.

“I think that is a challenge to all of us, to get out and prove the model wrong,” he said.

He said ICU numbers were lower than previous waves, although cautioned we were still in the early stages of this wave.

He said it reflects vaccination status of Queenslanders and improved access to antivirals.

“It means it is a less severe disease,” he said.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: David Clark

On Saturday, Deputy Premier Steven Miles said just a few weeks ago there were 20 times the number of Covid cases reported compared with flu, but that it was now “65 times the number”.

“That is a very big load, that is a lot of patients, and that obviously has an impact on what our hospitals can do,” he said.

He said that the number of people hospitalised was “more beds than some of our biggest hospitals” but there were still no plans for a mask mandate.

“Imagine taking one of our biggest hospitals out of the system and what impact that would have,” Mr Miles said.

“That’s what they’re experiencing right now.”

But Mr Miles was adamant the hospital system was coping, even with thousands of health staff off work due to illness.

“We have a workforce that gets affected just like everyone else’s workforce,” Miles said.

“If you think about how many people from your workplace have been off sick this week, imagine what impact that’s having on our hospitals.”

The Deputy Premier said it was unlikely Queensland’s third Covid wave was at its peak, warning things were set to get worse.

Queenslanders are being urged to wear masks but mandates are unlikely to return. Picture: Dan Peled

“You can’t take a daily figure and necessarily determine whether that’s a peak,” he said.

“The last advice I saw was that the peak was still some weeks away.

“You’ve got to look at an average over several days to make that kind of determination.”

Meanwhile, infectious diseases expert Professor Robert Booy said Australia was likely to hit

11,000 deaths (since the start of the pandemic) this week.