Eight new Qld COVID cases as ‘missing link’ found

The Premier has confirmed eight new cases of COVID have been detected in Queensland overnight, including one ‘historical’ one authorities say is the ‘missing link’.

Queensland has recorded eight new cases today with seven acquired overseas and detected in hotel quarantine.

There is one historical case which is believed to be the missing link to the first cluster.

Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk said it was great news for Queensland with 35,357 tests undertaken yesterday.

The state’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said everyone involved in the two clusters which led to a lockdown in Greater Brisbane had done “everything wonderfully”.

“It’s been an enormously successful process in terms of people coming forward,” she said.

Dr Young said the historical case was a nurse who had contracted the virus from a man who is a “superspreader”.

“And then she’s transmitted it to her partner,” she said.

“This is yet another nurse who has unfortunately, through doing nothing wrong, has contracted the infection, from a gentleman who is clearly a superspreader,” she said.

“It’s not his fault either. He was the gentleman who came from Europe and was admitted and transmitted the infection to a doctor. Now, he’s also transmitted it to a nurse.”

“And then the nurse, again, through absolutely no fault of her own, has then gone home and transmitted to her partner, who is one of that group that we know who lives in that north Brisbane area and has a close social network.”

Dr Young said it was “an enormous relief” to find the case, who was “definitely” the missing link.

“When you don’t know the links, when you know there’s still something out there, I’m just never sure what else could be going on, what other chains of transmission, what other friendship groups could there be, what other venues,” she said.

She said the woman never showed symptoms, but was infectious from the 10th to the 23rd of March.

She said the combination of contact tracing, health care, quarantine system and the lockdown contributed to the latest clusters being relatively contained.

“The first cluster, I didn’t recommend to the Premier that we needed to lock down,” Dr Young said.

“I felt we could just work through it. But then to get a second cluster, that’s an enormous amount of risk.”

She said the cluster would not be declared over a full 14 days had passed.

Dr Young said anyone who lived in the same household as someone treating COVID positive patients would now be included in the vaccine plan 1B.

Dr Young said there was three days worth of the Pfizer vaccine remaining, with more deliveries expected.

Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said there had been no enforcement action taken in relation to COVID operations in the last 24 hours.

“While we have handed out 1300 masks, we only had to take enforcement action on two occasions, very pleasing across the state,” he said.

However, he said there was person who left Princess Alexandra Hospital quarantine after she was identified as a close contact overnight.

“Health had identified a person had left the Princess Alexandra Hospital, we tracked that person down yesterday at New Farm,” he said.

“She’s been returned under quarantine direction to the PA hospital.”

Dr Young said the quarantine jumper was tested on March 30 and returned a negative result.