Qld Covid-19: ‘Particularly contagious’ FLiRT variant to hit within weeks

Vulnerable Queenslanders have been urged to update their vaccination status amid a warning about a new wave of Covid on the way.

• Viral load: Respiratory illnesses skyrocket

A new wave of Covid is expected to hit Queensland in the coming weeks with a new “particularly contagious” FLiRT variant driving up cases.

Chief health officer John Gerrard issued a warning on Tuesday about the winter blast, urging vulnerable Queenslanders to update their vaccines.

The FLiRT tag derives from the technical names of the mutations in the genetic codes of the variants.

“We are seeing an uptick in Covid cases and this is due to one of the FLiRT variants — almost certainly driven by one of these fluid variants particularly the very important KP3, a particularly contagious form of Covid.

Queenslanders have been warned about the arrival of a new Covid variant. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

“The numbers have started to rise and we will expect the numbers to increase significantly in the coming weeks. The illness looks similar to other forms of Covid,” Dr Gerrard said.

“This is another new sub-variant. What is critical though is that those people who are most at risk of Covid now get their boosters. We are talking mostly about people over the age of 70. We’ve seen a little bit of a drop off in those boosters in older people, which is the group that we’re most concerned about,” he said.

“There is also a subgroup of younger people with more severe forms of immunosuppression that (are) also included in this group but we’re mostly talking about the older age groups.” he said.

The CHO said vaccinations against influenza were high in the state with 1.25m Queenslanders jabbed.

“Influenza, you might have heard that in New South Wales the numbers of cases of influenza have increased significantly. At this stage, we have not seen that in Queensland, but we expect to see that sometime in the next few weeks.

“So this is a perfect time to get an influenza vaccine if you haven’t had one yet,” he said.