Border ultimatum: NSW given 48 hours to track Covid cases

NSW will have just 48 hours to scientifically link three new cases of locally acquired coronavirus to existing clusters if it wants Queensland to remain on track with a planned border reopening.

Queensland will consider pushing back its November 1 border reopening day if NSW health authorities can’t track down the source of three new coronavirus cases.

Health Minister Steven Miles confirmed this afternoon that the contact tracers would have 48 hours to scientifically link the cases to existing clusters.

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He said “as far as we know now”, Queensland was still on track for a review towards the end of the month and a “potential reopening on the 1st of November”.

But later confirmed that if they could not track down the links over the next two days, then they would “consider” pushing the reopening day back.

“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” the Health Minister said.

“The contact tracers in NSW have been doing a really great job. So I hope that they can identify how these are linked to a cluster.

“But if they’re not, then that’s very concerning and so we would need to take that into account.”

Mr Miles said if they could find the link of the cases, then that would not have any impact on the border reopening timeline.

“Let’s let (the contact tracers) do their work,” he said.

“There’s been cases where it’s taken our contact tracers a day or two to work out how they are connected to clusters.

“And that’s precisely what the team in NSW will be doing right now.”

Mr Miles said he still needed to look at the “specifics” of the new NSW cases.

“(Chief Health Officer Dr) Jeannette (Young) will get a briefing on that and it will be taken into account,” he said.