More than a third of Qld Covid cases in kids aged under 10

Most of the cases in Queensland’s latest Covid cluster are children, with one spending six days in the community while infectious before being placed in quarantine.

Most of the cases in Queensland’s latest cluster of the Covid-19 virus are children, ­including more than a third aged under 10, in what has become a game-changer in how health authorities attempt to control the contagion.

Queensland Children’s Hospital has been placed on standby in case an infected child becomes severely unwell, as three new infections emerged in children on Monday night - one in a student at Brisbane Girls’ Grammar and two at Brisbane Grammar School.

Data showed 11 of the 31 people known on Monday morning to be in the escalating Delta variant cluster are aged under 10 and eight are aged between 10-19, marking it the first time during the 18-month pandemic that the virus has spread freely in Queensland schools.

A child who was among 13 new locally acquired officially announced yesterday spent six days in the community while infectious before being placed into quarantine.

Queensland Children’s Hospital has been placed on standby as the Covid-19 virus sweeps through Brisbane schools. Photo: David Clark.

Seven schools are so far caught up in the cluster, which has triggered a Southeast Queensland lockdown of at least eight days, with St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School the latest to be named as an exposure site.

Experts say the risk of children becoming seriously ill as a result of the virus is low.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said her biggest concern was young children acting as super spreaders, passing the virus onto others.

“We know Delta is much more likely to spread amongst younger people,” Dr Young said. “In previous outbreaks, we’ve known that younger people have been spared but Delta has a closer affinity to respiratory cells and we know young people are more at risk.

“Although they’re less likely to do particularly badly if they get infected – they’re less likely to die – they are more likely to transmit to other people so I’m very worried about those schools.”

Infectious disease physician Paul Griffin said Queensland’s mitigation strategies had been largely focused on preventing the virus spreading among adults, but the Delta variant had caused a rethink.

He said previous variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, had not spread so easily among children.

“Our mitigation strategies have very much focused on the adults – appropriately, of course – based on what we knew and what we’ve seen previously,” Associate Professor Griffin said.

“We’ve got adults vaccinated, we’re not yet vaccinating the children, and here in Queensland, we’ve obviously focused on masks in adults.”

Ironside State School is one of seven Brisbane schools caught up in Queensland’s latest cluster of the Covid-19 virus. David Clark

That only changed at the weekend when Dr Young mandated masks to be worn by students and staff in high schools.

Primary school teachers and staff are also required to wear them moving forward, unless they teach deaf students.

Schools will be closed until at least next Monday to all but students classed as vulnerable and the children of essential workers.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said seven of the new locally-acquired cases announced yesterday were students from Ironside State School, five were household members or family contacts of those students and one was linked to a confirmed infection from a karate club that trained at the school.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen an outbreak like this one spreading in schools amongst students, teachers and parents and via extra-curricular activities and public transport,” Mr Miles said.

Ironside State School undergoing cleaning after being caught up in Queensland’s latest Covid-19 virus cluster. Photo: David Clark

Health authorities remain stumped about how the outbreak spread from two travellers on a flight from Singapore that arrived into the Brisbane International Airport on June 29.

Dr Young said one of those travellers had somehow transmitted the virus, through a missing link, or links, to a family of five, including a 17-year-old girl who attended Indooroopilly State High School.

“I haven’t found the missing link,” she said. “I don’t know where that missing link is.”

Dr Young has extended the Southeast Queensland lockdown to at least 4pm on Sunday and has bolstered the state’s contact tracing workforce to deal with the growing outbreak.

“I have asked this morning for my colleagues at other government agencies to release the staff that they released to us last year (for contact tracing),” she said.

“We had a lot of staff from a lot of different agencies providing support to health last year. I want those same people, because they’re already trained, they know what they’re doing, plus more. They’ve immediately responded.”

Prof Griffin said the chances of getting the virus under control by Sunday were “pretty low”.

“The big thing to consider right now is there’s always a lag,” he said. “The cases announced today were tested yesterday and actually infected before the lockdown commenced.”