3 new cases as vaccine rollout falls behind

Queensland has recorded three new cases of COVID-19, detected in hotel quarantine, but they have not been linked to a superspreader flight.

Queensland has recorded three new cases of COVID-19 today, but all were detected in hotel quarantine and are not linked to the feared super-spreading incident.

All the cases were acquired overseas and none are related to the Ok Tedi mine in PNG or the Qatar Airways flight which landed in Brisbane on February 17.

Dozens of travellers who arrived in Queensland on a flight from the Middle East last month have been forced to spend 19 days in hotel quarantine after a feared super-spreading incident with an infected traveller arriving into Brisbane from Doha on Qatar Airways flight QR898.

Five other cases of the Russian variant of the COVID-19 virus have since been linked.

Travellers had to stay in quarantine for longer after the super spreading incident. Photo: Sarah Marshall

More than 70 passengers on the flight were due to end their mandatory 14 days’ quarantine last week, but will instead remain in two hotels until March 8.

Authorities raced to track down eight people who stayed on the same floor of a Brisbane hotel quarantine facility that housed a COVID-19 “superspreader”.

In the biggest test for Queensland since the three-day lockdown in January, fears were mounting that the Russian variant spread throughout the eighth floor of the Hotel Mercure at North Quay.

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison toured the Astra Zeneca laboratories as the government falls behind meeting vaccination targets.

More than 6400 tests were undertaken over the past 24 hours, with there now being 24 active cases in Queensland.

It comes as the federal government remains well behind its initial COVID-19 vaccination targets nearly a fortnight into its rollout.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in January he “anticipated optimistically” 80,000 Australians would be vaccinated every week at the beginning of the rollout, before the effort was “scaled up”.

But almost two weeks after the first vaccine was administered, only 71,867 Australians have been immunised, including 20,814 residents across 241 aged care facilities.

Meanwhile, Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan and the EU’s top trade official Valdis Dombrovskis spoke on Friday as Canberra digested the news that Italy banned a shipment of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines to Australia.

A European Commission spokeswoman said the video call was previously scheduled but “they did discuss the export authorisation mechanism” under which Italy acted.

The call came a day after Rome, with the commission’s approval, blocked the export of 250,700 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine meant for Australia.

Italy explained the ban as necessary due to a shortage of vaccines in virus-hit Europe and the lack of urgent need in relatively virus-free Australia.

Originally published as 3 new cases as vaccine rollout falls behind