‘Test and isolate immediately’: Covid threat just over the border

Dozens of people must quarantine after being exposed to Covid-19 after two confirmed cases spent 11 hours at a busy truck stop and food court just south of the border.

Two people with Covid-19 spent the night at a busy truck spot just 14km south of the Queensland border, NSW Health have confirmed.

Anyone who was at the Chinderah Ampol petrol station, just off the Pacific Motorway in the Tweed Shire, from 8.30pm on Tuesday to 7.30am Wednesday needs to immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days, NSW Health said.

The two confirmed-positive cases stayed overnight at the truck stop at the Ampol service station, northbound on the Tweed Valley Way just near the Murwillumbah turn-off on the M1.

They used the truck drivers’ toilets, showers and lounge and the food court.

It is not known where the confirmed case travelled from there and if they crossed the border into Queensland.

Ampol Service Centre at Chinderah (formerly Caltex Starmart) has been added to the NSW Covid contact list after positive cases stayed overnight on Tuesday (July 13) to Wednesday (July 14). Picture: Supplied

In a letter sent to the NSW freight industry, Transport for NSW Executive Director Susie Harwood said two people with confirmed COVID-19 attended the Chinderah northbound truck stop while likely infectious.

Anyone who was at the site during those 11 hours is now a close contact and must isolate for 14 days from the date they visited the truck stop, regardless of their test result.

Queensland authorities were earlier on Saturday afternoon resisting shutting the border to NSW but authorities are on high alert after another explosion of cases, including confirmation three people travelled to NSW’s central and northern regions.

NSW police confirmed three removalists who were arrested after knowingly travelling with Covid from Sydney to Molong had not travelled to Chinderah.

However, NSW chief health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said on Saturday: “Unfortunately, those people had also worked in northern NSW on July 15, and we will be releasing any information that is relevant about that. But it does highlight that all regional communities should be on alert.”

Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young this afternoon urged Queenslanders to consider whether they needed to leave the state right now as the highly-infectious Delta variant continues to spread across the country.

No new locally acquired cases were recorded in Queensland on Saturday while one, which was acquired overseas, was detected in hotel quarantine.

But a massive 111 cases were added to NSW’s tally along with one death, sparking tougher lockdown restrictions including not allowing people living in Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool to leave the regions for work.

Dr Chant said surveillance testing had revealed three cases had travelled to Molong in the state’s central west on July 16.

“and what happened is we found the results of their testing and called them when they were just about to conclude some of their business,” she said.

Chief health officer Jeannette Young said the NSW outbreak was very concerning.

“And I’d like all Queenslanders to strongly consider their need to leave the state right now – particularly anyone over the age of 70 who is not vaccinated, now is not the time to leave Queensland,” she said.

Dr Young said people who had been interstate needed to check the exposure sites every day.

“Pick a time of the day that you’re going to check the website, set yourself a reminder,” she said.

“Anyone who has been interstate in the past 14 days will be required to check the Queensland Health contact tracing site every 24 hours.”

Justine Elliot, federal MP for Richmond on the NSW North Coast, said the Ampol station was a “very prominent service station” and the region was deeply concerned about the exposure to Covid-19.

“The service station is quite large, we have people who would stop there who are travelling north or south and from the local area so it is a very large servo,” she said.

“It’s a real concern, obviously we haven’t got any more details except for what NSW Health has put out so we want to get more information but it really is devastating for our community.

“We have a very large proportion of elderly people in our region and that is a real concern.”

Ms Elliot said earlier in the week she had called for Premier Gladys Berejiklian to create a border zone between Covid hotspots in NSW and northern NSW.

“If she had acted more urgently than this it would have protected our region,” she said.