‘Emergency is coming’: 10,332 new Covid cases, one death as health staff told to brace for explosion

Queensland has recorded 10,332 new Covid cases and one death in what authorities say is a ‘gross underestimation’ of the real spread. Amid the emergency, all health staff have been told they’ll become Covid workers, regardless of their speciality.

Queensland has recorded 10,332 new Covid cases and one death in the past 24 hours as authorities warn ‘we are stepping up to a very major emergency’.

There are now 284 people in hospital and 12 in ICU - which chief health officer Dr John Gerrard warned was expected to increase significantly in coming days.

Dr Gerrard said the highly-infectious strain meant the peak would be faster, but that meant it would also be quicker.

Amid the rapidly approaching emergency, all health staff have been told to be prepared to be reallocated to care for Covid patients, regardless of their speciality.

“We are very good at stepping up to an emergency, which is what we are about to see,” he said.

“So we are going to be stepping up to a very major emergency in the coming two or three weeks.

“When that emergency drags on for a long time, that is much more draining to deal with so ... there’s an upside and downside to this.”

Queensland Health confirmed one person - a man in his 80s who had been in hospital for ‘other conditions’ - had tragically lost his life to Covid.

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COVID-19 Update: @YvetteDath is speaking in Brisbane. #covid19https://t.co/HUo4uozTI6

— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) January 6, 2022

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the man died on December 27 but has now been confirmed his passing was due to Covid.

“We are very saddened by the news and any loss, of course, is very sad, especially for those closest to those individuals,” she said.

There are now 42,250 active cases in the state but Dr Gerrard said that was a ‘gross underestimation’ of the real case numbers in the community.

MAPPED: EVERY SUBURB WHERE COVID CASES LOCATED

“Of course, we know this is a gross underestimate of the true number,” he said.

“As we know, many patients are doing their own testing, their own RAT testing at home.

“So patients will have very mild illness and not recognise they have Covid-19 and some patients won’t quite be able to access testing.”

Dr Gerrard said the numbers of people requiring hospital treatment - for example who may need oxygen for a few days - was steadily increasing but the sheer number of infections expected in the coming weeks meant a significant number of people would be admitted to hospital.

“(It) is expected in the next two to three weeks to increase very substantially,” he said.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard explains an emergency is coming. Picture: Josh Woning

He said hospitals will be pulling back on elective surgeries now, and could eventually reallocate doctors working in surgical placements to Covid wards to alleviate the workforce pressures that will be felt in coming weeks when “thousands” of people are expected to be hospitalised with the virus.

Ms D’Ath said hospitals would make on-the-ground decisions around shifting resources as the pandemic continued.

“And I know our Chief Health Officer is very keen to talk to all of our hospitals and our chief executives as well to make sure that every doctor, every nurse, every physician, every clinical specialist health worker out there understands that they are all Covid health workers now,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter what your speciality or your area of work is.

“We all need every one of our health workers to be pitching in to support managing these Covid patients no matter where they work in our hospitals and that is what we’re working on.”

Today we have recorded 10,332 new COVID-19 cases.

Sadly, we have reported one death in the past 24 hours, which occurred on 27 December.

Full details âž¡ https://t.co/2vvTmlzIilpic.twitter.com/Ug8NAMFRSf

— Queensland Health (@qldhealth) January 6, 2022

Dr Gerrard said the bulk of patients in the past few weeks had been of a younger cohort.

He suggested the number of infections among older Queenslanders still remained low.

He said authorities would begin learning more about how Omicron affected older people as more fell ill, with the majority of cases so far having been in the more social younger people, mostly in their 20s.

Dr Gerrard told parents they should not be “unduly concerned” about their children becoming infected because most displayed very mild symptoms.

But they should definitely get their children vaccinated, he said.

Ms D’Ath said Queensland authorities were already seeing a reduction in testing lines Thursday after the decision not to require people to verify a positive rapid antigen test with a PCR test.

Ms D’Ath said the only people coming forward for PCR testing now should be those who can’t get access to a RAT, or close contacts and confirmed cases who need their day-six test to be released from quarantine.

She said despite RATs being handed out from today, she expected they would run out quickly because only 150,000 of 500,000 had been delivered by the overseas supplier.

“And we will keep working with them to see if we can get the remainder of the 500,000 that we were told would be available to us,” she said.

So far, 39,000 had been distributed to testing clinics.

“I expect that 39,000 will probably run out in a matter of hours, if not a couple of days and we will have to wait for the next supply to arrive,” she said.

She said some people would be frustrated about missing out but people would be prioritised, with sick, elderly people, and pregnant women offered the tests ahead of others.

“We want to give them a test if they want to take a home test so they can go home and rest and look after themselves and do that test in the comfort of their own homes and now wait long periods of time during the PCR test,” she said.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath has warned all health staff - no matter what speciality they are in - will become Covid health workers. Picture: Zak Simmonds

She said people could also assume they had Covid and stay home for their quarantine period.

She announced that international arrivals who are quarantining at home will no longer need a PCR test.

They will now only need a rapid antigen test, reducing queues at testing clinics.

Ms D’Ath said despite the greater use of RATs, authorities still want to know how many people were testing positive so that modelling could occur.

“We’re working on a system at the moment so that we hope people will be able to notify us fairly easily that they have got a positive rapid antigen test,” she said.

“We can get them into a system where we know numbers that will help us model and understand the growth of the virus in the community and the likely hospitalisation rate.”

Ms D’Ath said people could contact Queensland Health now to tell them of their positive diagnosis, but she didn’t want thousands of otherwise well people flooding the Covid help line.

Instead, people who were concerned, with underlying issues, or who were otherwise at-risk could notify QH ahead of a national recording system.

The Health Minister said she expected the situation would see ambulance waiting times pushed out.

Ms D’Ath said the decision to cease the testing of truck drivers and those patients presenting to hospitals would also free up testing for those who most need it.

“We hope the private hospitals implement this as quickly as possible and ensure that people are not turned away from getting treatment because they haven’t been tested first,” she said.

Ms D’Ath also welcomed the work on a national return-to-school framework.

“I know parents are anxious to know what that is and the states will be moving as quickly as possible and working with the Commonwealth so we can get this framework decided and announced before the start of the school year,” she said.

She said it would not be long until all 77 local government areas across Queensland had recorded Covid cases.

About 80 per cent of the virus in Queensland is of the Omicron variant.

It comes as free rapid antigen tests are distributed through the state’s testing clinics from today.

The move, along with the opening of six new sites where people can get tested for Covid, is in response to massive wait times at existing clinics.

Ms D’Ath said the Queensland Government was pleased with the decisions out of national cabinet on Wednesday around providing free rapid antigen tests to vulnerable people.

National cabinet on Wednesday decided to make rapid antigen tests free for all concession card holders with the kits to be handed out via pharmacies.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also confirmed national cabinet had agreed that all jurisdictions will begin moving away from the need for interstate hotspot arrivals to show a negative rapid antigen test result.

Queensland will do this when 90 per cent of the adult population has been double vaccinated.