Gold Coast has weekend free of further COVID-19 spread as Queensland restrictions ease
Gold Coasters are breathing a collective sigh of relief after a weekend free of further COVID-19 spread - as aged care facilities are declared safe to open.
Gold Coast
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GOLD COASTERS are breathing a collective sigh after a weekend free of further COVID-19 community spread.
On Monday – dubbed D-Day for whether the city and state would have community outbreaks after a series of border breaches – just one person was diagnosed with the virus after returning from overseas. A total of 11 active cases remain in the state.
Monday marked the much anticipated deadline set by the State Government and health officials, as the end of the 14-day COVID-19 incubation period after two Logan teenagers returned from Victoria carrying the virus.
Because of the low spread Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young announced that Gold Coast aged care facilities could “safely” reopen to visitors following the two-week lockdown.
“With all the restrictions of course we still need to be very cautious and careful at all times because they have the most vulnerable in society living in them (aged care homes),” Dr Young said.
“We can reopen … this is because Queenlanders came forward in their droves to get tested, please continue doing that.
FEVER CLINIC DOCTOR REFUSED ENTRY TO QUEENSLAND TO WORK
“That is the way we will prevent this spreading through our state, if we can get the first case not the fourth case or the fiftieth case we will be able to manage it going forward.”
The news of the rule relaxation still won’t change the circumstances for Merrimac’s Jan Sugg who said she would return to visit her 95-year-old mother Beryl Wilesmith at Opal Kirra Beach Aged Care this week – but from the other side of a fence.
The retiree said she still would not enter the aged care facility because her husband’s immune system “was shot” and she’d “prefer not to go in just on the off-chance someone in there has COVID-19”.
“We just can’t take that risk.”
Despite diminishing case numbers Gold Coast residents also continued to submit themselves for testing, facing hours long waits at fever clinics on Monday.
At 10am long queues could be seen stretching along the road for the Gold Coast University Hospital fever clinic in Southport.
“The nurse came out and told us it would be an hour and a half wait,” one resident said.
Another who was being tested at noon said he had been in line for more than two hours.
As of Monday, 987 locals are under self quarantine orders waiting for their test results and just two cases are active on the coast.
Across the state 6,704 individuals have been tested in the last 24 hours.
Originally published as Gold Coast has weekend free of further COVID-19 spread as Queensland restrictions ease