Long lines at Coffs Harbour and Macksville Covid testing stations

Sean Waters, who is in Coffs visiting his grandmother, waited more than nine hours before being turned away. He said traffic controllers were left to provide the “muscle” as tempers flared.

Sean, Angela, Michelle and Georgia Waters.

The ‘full house’ sign was up at the Covid testing station at Coffs Harbour on Wednesday although the queue had eased slightly from previous days.

Brisbane man Sean Waters, who is in town visiting his grandmother Angela Waters from Sapphire Beach, was turned away from the Coffs International Stadium clinic after waiting several hours on Monday.

He was told to return again on Tuesday at 4am. He arrived at 3.30am and waited over nine hours but was turned away again without being tested.

“I would have been happy to wait that long if I knew there was going to be a test at the end of it.”

He was shocked at the condition of the portable toilets provided and said it was left to the traffic controllers to provide the “muscle” as tempers flared when people were turned away.

It was nose-to-bumper and noses to swabs at the Coffs Harbour Covid-19 testing station on Wednesday, December 29. Picture: Chris Knight.

Sean is in the region with his mum Michelle Waters and sister Georgia Waters. They have decided to extend their holiday until early January and were relieved to hear Queensland had relaxed its testing requirements.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to confirm arrivals into the state would be able to use a negative rapid antigen test to satisfy border pass requirements from New Year’s Day.

“I saw a post somewhere that rapid antigen tests were available at Boambee IGA so we raced off like mad people to get some so we will be ready to return to Brisbane in the new year.”

There are long lines at testing clinics across the region including Grafton and in the Nambucca Valley with lines stretching all the way back to River Street from the testing centre near Phillip Hughes Oval.

NSW premier Dominic Perrottet apologised for the lengthy delays at testing stations across the state, and urged people to attend only if they were feeling unwell or had been identified as a potential contact of someone with Covid.

There was some relief on Wednesday morning when the Queensland government said visitors could obtain a negative result from a home administered rapid antigen test to be able to travel, instead of the more exhaustive and lengthy process at the NSW-run Covid test stations.

The change of heart followed a barrage of criticism from NSW, which suggested Queensland’s use of the more stringent PCR tests were clogging an already stressed health system.

In the latest figures available for the Mid North Coast, there were 924 locally acquired Covid-19 cases in the past four weeks to 8pm on Tuesday. For the same period, 38,013 tests were conducted.

For the Coffs Harbour local government area, there have been 326 cases and 13,514 tests in the past four weeks.