‘It’s spreading among our kids’: Premier’s plea to stop ‘hideous virus’

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has written this urgent plea for Queenslanders, as the state’s Delta crisis worsens.

Once again we find ourselves battling this hideous virus.

We know the Delta strain moves faster. It makes people sicker.

Many more need to go to hospital.

This Delta strain is spreading among our children and impacting on many households.

So what do we do? We fight back!

Our first job is to stop it spreading. Just. Stop.

The more we move, the more the virus moves.

Stay home. Don’t leave unless it’s absolutely necessary.

There are too many cars on the road for all of them to be doing something essential.

Please, please stay home.

The other thing we can do is get tested.

One of the cruel twists of this outbreak has been affecting the schools where a lot of healthcare workers send their children.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Brad Fleet

That means a number of them have gone into quarantine, putting pressure on our ability to staff testing centres.

Finding adequate reserves for those centres is taking some time, which makes me even more grateful to those waiting in testing centre queues.

I am naturally optimistic and positive. I think Queenslanders are too.

Already this year, Queenslanders have fought back more than a dozen separate Covid outbreaks. Wearing masks and keeping our distance has kept us all safe.

But it’s going to take an extra effort from all of us to beat this new strain and end the lockdown as soon as possible.

The pandemic continues to through up new challenges. These are challenges the whole world is confronting.

But we are not helpless. The power to beat it is in our hands. Just stay home. Get tested. And, of course, get vaccinated.

I know all of this is easy to say and there are thousands doing it tough, not least those families in home quarantine. We are all thinking of you.

But we will get through this. We have defeated Covid before. And with all of us working together it will never defeat us.