Tourism operators’ plea for rapid antigen tests

Shattered Far North tourism operators have issued a plea to the state government to allow the use of rapid antigen tests as Covid isolation rules can leave them without enough staff to function.

SHATTERED Far North tourism operators have issued a plea to the state government to allow the use of rapid antigen tests as Covid isolation rules can leave them without enough staff to function.

Passions of Paradise was forced to shut temporarily on Tuesday after it was listed as a casual Covid exposure site between 8am to 5pm on Wednesday, December 22.

Founder Alan Wallish said he had been forced to close the tour business because all of his staff were required to undergo testing and wait for negative results before they were able to work again.

“Our boat is fully booked out this week, now every day we have to cancel. We don’t know when we can go back,” he said.

Passions of Paradise managing director Alan Wallish. Picture: Stewart McLean

“We are at the busiest two weeks of the year, we had to tell 90 people that they wont be able to go to the Reef.”

But he said the ongoing problem for tourism operators could be solved with rapid antigen tests.

“We need to be using the rapid antigen tests. It’s taking some people all day just to get the PCR test then we still have to wait,” he said.

Tourism companies were running on skeleton staff and couldn’t afford to wait for tests, he said.

“We only have (just) enough staff to run (the business), if one person in the company goes down, we all go down,” he said.

“We are all suffering staff shortages so there is no way – we don’t have a B-team, we don’t have a C-team we only have one team.

“We were all looking forward to working hard over the next few weeks, now we have had to stop.”

But Passions of Paradise wasn’t the only business affected by Covid testing with Cairns Adventure Group shuttle bus also listed as a close contact spot on Christmas Eve forcing three workers to isolate for seven days.

Cairns Adventure Group, which runs white water rafting companies Raging Thunder and Foaming Fury in the Barron Gorge National Park outside of Cairns, are struggling to keep enough staff rostered on in what is their busiest period of the year. Cairns Adventure Group Director Roderic Rees is fed up with the government's lack of foresight and changing directives affecting his business. Picture: Brendan Radke

Cairns Adventure Group director Roderic Rees agreed it was time to introduce the rapid antigen tests.

“Covid is moving through the community and we have an overwhelmed testing capability,” he said.

“If we can get to rapid antigen testing, we can test our staff and have a result in 20 minutes and we can know who we need to segregate.

“Otherwise we will end up with no staff and will have to shut down at the busiest time of the year.”

On Tuesday the state government announced that the day five testing requirement would be scrapped for interstate travellers.

Mr Rees said it was a step in the right direction.

“We are moving towards a more common sense approach,” he said.

“It’s a step in the right direction. Now we just need to get rapid antigen tests in immediately.”

Pharmacy Guild of Australia president Trent Twomey said it makes sense to use the rapid antigen tests but there was not currently enough of them until emergency shipments came through.

“Getting a laboratory PCR test that can take many hours and many days to be returned is not convenient for us in every day life,” he said.

The Pharmacy Guild has sourced half a million tests but they are not expected to arrive until between January 6 or January 7.

Originally published as Tourism operators’ plea for rapid antigen tests