Record daily infection tip of the iceberg of true community spread

Authorities fear Omicron is rapidly spreading undetected through the community at a rate never imagined, while Queenslanders queue for nine hours to get tested.

The Palaszczuk government has pleaded with private testing companies to return to operation as health authorities warn Queensland will report hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 infections this month “if not more”.

The state reported 5699 new cases on Tuesday but epidemiologists declared this record daily figure was just the tip of the iceberg of the true number of infections currently in the community given the long queues at testing clinics and reports of wait times for results blowing out to nearly four days.

Chief health officer John Gerrard said 23 per cent of state-run testing was returning positive results, which leading infectious disease experts said revealed an alarming indication of the scale of community transmission.

“That means the true positive cases at the moment are many fold what’s being reported,” University of Queensland’s Dr Paul Griffin said.

A positivity rate of under 5 per cent was considered the goal to managing a pandemic, which suggested the peak of the outbreak was weeks away.

Infectious disease expert Peter Collignon agreed, declaring the rate revealed “there’s more cases out there”.

Queensland continues to be plagued with testing issues. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Dr Gerrard said the infectious nature of the Omicron strain had caught authorities off guard as he updated the prediction for a “substantial” rise of infections throughout the month.

“The number of cases we are expecting to see through January will be very high. Certainly in the hundreds of thousands, if not more — very high,” the top doctor said.

Reduced testing capacity had plagued the state over the Christmas break when nearly all closed for a number of days while Health Minister Yvette D’Ath revealed frustration at private operators who advised the government late that 17 sites would not open on Tuesday.

Pathology group QML closed eight drive-through sites due to staffing issues and Sullivan Nicolaides resources were repurposed by the Commonwealth government to conduct emergency testing at aged care sites, the Health Minister said.

Some were forced to wait more than nine hours for a PCR test on Tuesday.

Ms D’Ath said this had put a “strain across the whole testing system” with the late notice from the private operators leaving authorities unprepared and sparking another frustrating day for Queenslanders waiting many hours to be screened.

“We reached out to them to see how many were opening and if they could open — of course we want them opening up as quickly as possible,” she said.

“My understanding is that we reached out to all the private pathologists to talk about them opening up after the Christmas break.”

Ms D’Ath said the government asked testing companies to return to operation. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Sonya Bennett said surveillance testing in aged care facilities had been happening before the Omicron variant emerged, but recent outbreaks in homes had resulted in an increase need for Covid-19 testing.

“Private providers have been involved and are doing the testing in that space because, as you’d appreciate, it is critical … in outbreaks in a vulnerable setting, that testing is undertaken,” she said.

Health authorities in Queensland also revealed the requirement for interstate travellers to return a negative rapid antigen test on arrival could be scrapped amid fears the vaccine slowdown had delayed the 90 per cent jab milestone being reached.

Ms D’Ath said the second dose rate “should be higher right now”.

“There are some people in Queensland now who are eligible for their second dose who have not come forward,” she said.

Reaching 90 per cent is the final phase of the state government’s vaccine plan, which will further trigger increased freedom of travel — essentially allowing unrestricted interstate and international travel for those who are vaccinated.

But the stagnant jab rate delaying the easing of the travel restriction was compounding issues with dwindling rapid antigen test stocks.

“The Omicron strain really has changed everything,” Dr Gerrard said. “I know it sounds like a cliche, but that has completely changed all the planning.

“When one person is on average infecting between seven and 10 others … that bares no resemblance to the Covid we’ve been dealing with right up until now.”

The top doctor said he is meeting with federal and interstate counterparts each day with “all of our settings changing very rapidly”.

“On the specific issue of the border testing, I’m not going to make any specific comment about that but we review all of these things on a daily basis,” he said.