More than half of Qld’s COVID-19 patients are from Papua New Guinea
Annastacia Palaszczuk has again called for a reduction in international arrivals into Queensland, with more than half of the state’s COVID-19 patients arriving from virus-ravaged PNG.
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More than half of Queensland’s current COVID-19 patients have travelled from Papua New Guinea with Annastacia Palaszczuk insisting the Commonwealth should extend reduced international arrivals.
There were 25 new overseas acquired cases this week, with the Premier admitting she believed Queensland was recording the highest of any state or territory.
There are currently 42 cases being treated who have travelled from PNG – which is more than 62 per cent of the current overseas cases in Queensland.
No new cases of community transmission were recorded on Friday, as health authorities announced they had found the missing link for the first of two clusters – another nurse from the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
Ms Palaszczuk said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not yet responded to her request to extend the halving of international arrivals coming into Queensland until the end of April, but he had agreed to the first two weeks.
“But as you saw today (Friday) we’ve got another seven cases coming in from overseas,” she said.
“We’re seeing around this five to nine cases daily coming in, so that’s putting a strain, it puts everyone at risk.
“Queensland is the highest because of the number of people returning with the infection coming into Queensland.”
She said halving the number of arrivals was a “good first measure”.
Meanwhile it’s not known whether Queensland will receive more of the Pfizer vaccine this weekend despite there being just days worth of supply left.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young yesterday said there were three days left of supply and wasn’t sure whether more would be delivered over the weekend.
The Premier said she was hoping to receive more, while calling on the Federal Government to provide a weekly update on how much of the vaccine each state and territory were expected to receive.
Queensland broke another testing record on Friday with 35,357 people coming forward.
Almost two dozen new venues were added to Queensland Health’s list of exposure sites yesterday, after authorities found the missing link for the first of the latest two clusters which was related to a doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in early March.
Serology testing has determined a nurse, who had not yet been vaccinated, treated the same COVID-19 patient as the PA doctor from the first cluster.
She is considered a historic locally acquired case.
“This is yet another nurse who has unfortunately, through doing nothing wrong, has contracted the infection from a gentlemen who is clearly a superspreader,” Dr Young said.
“It’s not his fault either.
“He was the gentleman that came from Europe and was admitted and transmitted the infection to a doctor, now he has also transmitted it to a nurse.
“The nurse through absolutely no fault of her own has then gone home and transmitted it to her partner who’s one of that group that we know live in that north Brisbane area and are a close social network.”
Dr Young said the nurse had never been sick, and has deemed her infectious period to have been between March 10 and 23, after treating the patient on March 9.
She said people who had visited the venues the nurse had might not be sick anymore given the time which has elapsed but their house mates or friendship groups could be, so those people should get tested.
“We might have some cases there but given the amount of testing that’s been done, we’ve probably picked up the cases because there’s just been astronomical amount of testing,” she said.
Dr Young said she was relieved.
“It’s an enormous relief because when you don’t know the links, when you know that there’s still something out there … I’m just never sure what else could be going on, what other trains of transmission, what other friendship groups could there be, what other venues,” she said.
Meanwhile Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said there had been no enforcement action taken in relation to COVID-19 operations in the 24 hours to 9am Friday.
Authorities did hand out 1300 masks.
But Mr Gollschewski said there was a person who left the Princess Alexandra Hospital quarantine after she was identified as a close contact to a positive case.
“Health had identified that 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 she didn’t believe the quarantine jumper posed a risk to the community because she wasn’t a COVID-19 patient.
She was tested on March 30 and returned a negative result.
Another test is being undertaken.
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