Health Minister Steven Miles provides update on COVID-19 cases in Queensland
Health Minister Steven Miles said Scott Morrison’s ongoing criticism of Queensland’s COVID-19 restrictions was proof that the Prime Minister was “determined to tear down” Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
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Health Minister Steven Miles said Prime Minister Scott Morrison was fixated on “tearing down” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Mr Miles said Mr Morrison had developed a strategy aimed at “bringing down” Queensland’s Labor government, which had been passed on to state Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington.
“(The LNP) is determined to bring us and our government down,” Mr Miles said.
“That’s why there is this focus on Queensland.
“There are borders in place in every state and similar restrictions in place in every state at the moment.
“Why Scott Morrison is so determined to tear our Premier down … well, you’d have to ask him that.
“But I understand from the reports that it was a deliberate strategy concocted in the Prime Minister’s office … a strategy developed by him and them and one that was then directed to Deb Frecklington and one being carried by her, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton.”
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Mr Miles took aim at Prime Minister Scott Morrison, accusing him of rejecting the advice of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) over reopening of borders.
He said Queensland continued to use the criteria of the committee, which includes the state’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young as a member, over the definition of hot spots.
The AHPPC has written to Premiers over its hotspot definition, the benchmark being used by Queensland to keep its borders closed to NSW and Victoria.
“That is 28 days, two full incubation periods, of no community transmission,” Mr Miles said.
“I was disappointed to learn that the Federal Government, Scott Morrison, had rejected a paper from the AHPPC that said precisely that.
“If you’re going to have experts, then you have to at least consider their advice.
“You can’t reject their advice before it even gets considered by national cabinet, which appears to be what Scott Morrison has done here.”
Queensland has come under fire for its strict border restrictions.
Mr Morrison said earlier this week as long as the country remained closed, it could not claim success in handling the pandemic.
“If we are shut, we are not living alongside the virus, the virus is actually keeping us from living,” he said.
“Let’s now seize the opportunity ahead of us to safely and successfully reopen this country, reconnect this country, and stay open.
“Only when businesses can see their way to expanding what they do and how many more people they can employ, then they can see that, that’s why they will invest.”
The latest case relates to a male health care worker aged in his 60s who is a known contact of a confirmed case of COVID-19.
He was diagnosed on his 10th day in quarantine, so there is no risk of community transmission, Mr Miles said.
“If we manage to only have cases from these clusters in quarantine, then we will ultimately end these clusters,” he said.
Mr Miles said there had been a significant increase in the number of people getting tested, with 11,643 in the past 24 hours.
There are currently 27 active cases in Queensland.
Mr Miles said he was very comfortable with how he had relayed information to the public during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Throughout this entire pandemic we have been as transparent … as we could possibly have been,” he said.
He said 28 days of no community transmission outside of quarantine was what the Queensland Government was using before reopening the state’s border to people living in hot spots, such as NSW and Victoria.
“We want to see those borders open up just as soon as it is safe to do so,” Mr Miles said.
“We continue to look at the data each and every day.
“We’ve said we’ll do a major review of those border restrictions at the end of every month.”
Mr Miles said the latest case was a worker at the Ipswich Hospital
“We’ve had several cases now of hospital workers who have been infected,” he said.
It comes as restrictions on gatherings on the Gold Coast and Darling Downs were loosened from 8am today, after more than a fortnight had passed without a case in either region.
Queensland has recorded 1149 cases of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 since late January.
An 83-year-old man was the last Queenslander to have died from COVID-19 in April.
Meanwhile, Metropolitan Melbourne’s 14-day rolling average has dipped even further after 28 new cases of coronavirus were recorded overnight, along with eight deaths.
Thursday’s figures are the lowest since 20 cases were recorded on June 24.