Infected woman could face police investigation
A woman found to have been infectious in the Queensland community should have been in quarantine and could face a police investigation as a result.
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A young woman who brought the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus into Queensland from Victoria is expected to face a police probe for allegedly breaching public health directions.
The woman in her 20s attended the Young and Jackson Hotel in Victoria on July 10, identified four days later as a Covid-19 exposure site.
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the student travelled from Melbourne to Maroochydore, on the Sunshine Coast, transiting through Brisbane, on July 13.
She received an SMS from Victorian health authorities two days later “because she had been at the Young and Jackson pub” at the same time as a known case of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
The woman “immediately” got tested for SARS-CoV-2 and returned a negative test the following day.
Under both Queensland and Victoria’s public health directions, she should have gone into quarantine as soon as she received the SMS on July 15, filled in an online contact tracing form and continued to isolate “even after receiving a negative result” for 14 days.
Queensland Police said if the woman’s case involved “any compliance issues … that is something police will look at, at the appropriate time”.
“Our priority right now is to ensure anyone who may have been exposed comes forward and gets tested as a precaution,” a police statement said.
“It is extremely important that if you have been to an exposure site either in Queensland or across Australia that you follow the directions from authorities very closely.”
A Department of Health and Human Services Victoria spokesman could not answer if the text message sent to the woman also instructed her to self-isolate, but the Victorian government’s dedicated coronavirus web site states anyone identified as having been in a Tier one Covid exposure site - the highest risk category - was required to isolate even if a negative COVID test was received.
She said anyone entering the state from Melbourne after it was declared a hot spot was now required to complete 14 days of quarantine.
A Queensland Health spokeswoman said, because the Mareeba woman had left Melbourne days before Queensland declared the city as a COVID hotspot - and before it went into lockdown on July 15 - she was not required to enter quarantine on her entry into Queensland.
She said anyone entering the state from Melbourne after it was declared a hot spot were now required to complete 14 days of quarantine.
The woman, who was transferred to a Brisbane hospital yesterday, was fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and insists she wore masks while on public transport, but Dr Young admitted she was concerned about the potential for the virus to spread.
“We’ll just have to see how it flows over the next few days,” Dr Young said.
She said she was most concerned about friends the woman stayed with in Maroochydore last week and household contacts in Mareeba, in the far north.
Diners at the Rice Boi Restaurant at the Mooloolaba Wharf between 6.45pm and 8pm on July 15 – when the woman should have been in quarantine – are being asked to get tested “immediately” for the virus and then to isolate until contacted by health officials.
“She was at the Rice Boi for quite a significant period and we know that hospitality venues because you don’t need to wear a mask once you’re seated are a higher risk,” Dr Young said.
While on the Sunshine Coast, she also visited the Sunshine Plaza from 3.55pm to 4.15pm on July 15 and flew to Cairns the next day on flight VA791.
Dr Young said the woman began to develop symptoms while in Mareeba, her home town, on Saturday and went to the Atherton fever clinic for testing on Sunday.
She had received both doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, the second on May 10, which Dr Young said reduced her chances of passing the virus onto others but “doesn’t remove the risk”.
With ongoing Delta variant outbreaks in South Australia, Victoria and NSW, Dr Young urged Queenslanders to holiday at home.
“Please, just holiday in Queensland because we don’t know where the next case might be,” she said.
South Australia went into lockdown for seven days from 6pm last night and Australia’s two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, remain locked down.
Queensland will shut its borders to South Australia from 1am Thursday.
“As an additional precaution, I’m requiring those entering Queensland from South Australia before 1am Thursday to immediately get tested and quarantine at home if they have been to any exposure venue in South Australia,” Dr Young said.
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the death of a woman in her 50s from Covid-19 in NSW this week was a “stark reminder to all of us the deadly nature of this virus”.
“The first case in the NSW cluster started five weeks ago and in those five weeks, five people have lost their lives,” Ms D’Ath said.
“In those five weeks, we have seen the number of (active) cases across the country increase tenfold. We are now at 1360 cases across Australia where only five weeks ago we were down to 127.
“We now have transmission from that NSW cluster in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland.”
Infectious disease physician Paul Griffin said one person infected with the Delta variant was enough in the right set of circumstances to potentially introduce widespread community transmission.
“The fact that we have such excellent testing and high rates of testing means we’re unlikely to detect these things late and we find these cases relatively early, we can find their contacts and isolate them.
“That’s going to go a long way to preventing establishment of widespread transmission in the community.”
Queensland still has 36 active cases of the virus, including two people being treated in intensive care units, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s.
Despite the latest Covid-19 scare and warnings about interstate travel, Deputy Premier Steven Miles urged Queenslanders to watch tonight’s historic Olympic broadcast from Tokyo when Brisbane will find out whether it has won the right to host the 2032 Games.
“Whether you want to watch it at home with your family, whether you want to go to one of the live broadcast sites, and there’s many of those throughout the city and the state, if you want to see the fireworks or the concert, head to South Bank or into the city,” Mr Miles said.
“It’s a chance for parents to create that memory for their kids that they will look back on. In 2032, imagine watching the opening ceremony and thinking back to where you were the night we won the Olympics.”
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