Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reveals student nurse among six new Covid cases

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has revealed Queensland has recorded six new Covid cases overnight but only one was locally acquired - a student nurse linked to the Alpha cluster.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has revealed Queensland has recorded six new Covid cases overnight but only one was locally acquired.

She said five were overseas acquired and detected in hotel quarantine while the single locally acquired case was linked to the Alpha cluster.

The locally acquired case is a Kangaroo Point woman who a close contact to the Sinnamon Park case announced yesterday.

The woman is asymptomatic and it is not known how long she was in the community while infectious.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the woman was a student nurse, training through Griffith University and doing a placement at Logan hospital.

It is understood she was not on campus or at the hospital since June 15.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed one new locally acquired case. Picture: Jono Searle

Dr Young said the case was “low risk, but of course we are taking it very very seriously”

A total of 5,177 people are in home quarantine and 3,000 are in hotel quarantine.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said more than 3 million Covid tests had been undertaken across the state since the start of the pandemic with 22,000 tests done yesterday.

She said more than 200,000 extra Pfizer doses would be coming into Queensland in July.

She said 64,350 Pfizer doses at week would come into Queensland community vaccination clinics - that’s 10,000 more than June - while 168,000 would go into GP clinics.

Ms Palaszczuk said she would ‘move heaven and earth’ to get the Queensland population vaccinated.

“The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can open up,” she said.

Meanwhile The Courier-Mail can reveal 167 staff from The Prince Charles Hospital are currently in quarantine as a precautionary measure after two staff tested positive over the last week.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said there was no impact to patient care.

“Metro North Health has allocated additional resources from its other facilities, and staff have adapted to flexible working arrangements and are embracing telehealth and virtual care models during this time,” she said.

Assistant Commissioner Steve Gollschewski also this morning revealed a woman has staged a brazen escape from hotel quarantine in Cairns.

A 32 year old woman had travelled from Sydney on July 1 and was quarantining at Cairns Pacific International Hotel until she was discovered missing yesterday.

He reminded people in home quarantine police would conduct random checks to ensure they have not left.

The woman escaped the Pacific Hotel in Cairns. Picture: Stewart McLean

The Premier defended her upcoming trip to Tokyo for Brisbane’s 2032 Olympics bid after a petition calling for the federal government to not issue her a travel exemption garnered thousands of signatures.

She said if there were lockdowns happening at the time she is supposed to leave, she would not be going.

“People are entitled to their views,” she said.

“This is the biggest opportunity that Queensland’s ever seen.”

Treasurer Cameron Dick has reaffirmed that financial assistance is given to struggling businesses when there is a seven-day lockdown.

“We are getting the benefit of short, sharp lockdowns and that’s good for the economy,” he said.

Mr Dick said the government would monitor what was going on.

“We know after the January lockdown spending bounced back by 10 per cent,” he said.

“Similarly in March retail sales were up 3 per cent for the month.”

Yesterday, Queensland recorded seven new Covid cases – four locally acquired while three were detected in hotel quarantine and overseas acquired.

The first is a case was a woman who is a close contact to the Greek Orthodox Community Centre outbreak. The second case in her child.

The third and fourth cases were the partner and colleague of a man who travelled to Eumundi last week.

They all have the Alpha strain.

Health authorities are trying to find the missing link between infections at the Greek Community Centre and Brisbane’s Portuguese restaurant. There have been a combined 23 cases from the two clusters.