‘We will have a surge’: New CHO reveals details on Covid road ahead

The state’s new chief health officer says that while vaccinated Queenslanders will be able to live a ‘normal life’ over the next few months, steps are also being made to ‘protect’ the unvaccinated.

Unvaccinated Queenslanders should not rely on tough jab mandates ending in the coming months while border closures and lockdowns should be a thing of the past.

As Dr John Gerrard takes on the role of Queensland’s Chief Health Officer on Monday, on his 60th birthday and the day the state throws open its borders, his aim is clear.

He wants to lead the vaccinated towards more freedoms and “normal life” in the next few months.

“The priority for the unvaxxed is to keep them protected from virus, for their sake, for those around them and for the health service. The aim is to make sure they don’t come in contact with Covid in crowded environments,” he said.

The newly appointed health chief has also revealed that he is not going into the job with the plan to ever return to border closures or lockdowns — even if the unexpected hits.

“Let’s not trivialise Omicron but new variants are going to appear and we can’t stop the plan every time a new variant arrives, The road map is solid and hard to fault.” he said.

New Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

The infectious disease doctor said that testing on blood samples taken from Omicron patients would reveal in the next couple of weeks if the virus can be defeated by existing vaccines.

“The virus can’t mutate too much or it won’t work,” Dr Gerrard said.

Dr Gerrard, who is married with two adult daughters, said he hopes that when people who are unvaccinated are refused entry into entertainment venues next Friday, they will realise they miss their freedom and will get the Covid jab.

Dr John Gerrard lives and breathes infectious diseases and is the only living Australian with a human pathogen named after him. He has developed a glowing international reputation for research in emerging infectious diseases and an organism called Heterorhabditis gerrardi, that glows in the dark, was named in his honour by American researchers in 2009.

Dr John Gerrard when he was in Sierra Leone setting up a centre for the treatment of people who presented with the Ebola virus. Picture supplied.

He was born for the responsibility of being Chief Health Officer and has been preparing for a pandemic all his life.

He arrived on the Gold Coast in 1994 to take up the post of Director of Infectious Diseases at the Gold Coast Hospital. As a young doctor in 1993, Dr Gerrard rewrote Australia’s medical history by identifying the country’s earliest known case of AIDS.

The international threat of SARS in 2003 highlighted to the doctor the deficiencies in existing hospitals when it came to the risk of airborne infectious diseases. This led him to help design the new Gold Coast University Hospital with the capacity to safely manage a pandemic such as COVID-19.

Dr John Gerrard lives and breathes infectious diseases and is the only living Australian with a human pathogen named after him. Pic Tim Marsden

When asked if he is the man who will lead Queenslanders out of the pandemic he admits that for the last 30 years he has trained in practices to do just that.

“Now we are entering the phase where cases are about to surge the skills I have gained are the right ones for this moment,” he said.

Dr Gerrard said modelling shows we are likely to see thousands of cases — something Queenslanders have not experienced.

“We will see spot fires to start with and some may burn out or may continue — these are called seeding events. As they increase at some point it will be difficult to contact trace and isolate everyone and that is when we will have a surge,” he said.

Dr John Gerrard when he was in Sierra Leone setting up a centre for the treatment of people who presented with the Ebola virus. Picture supplied.

What vaccinated Queenslanders will see in the future is more freedoms and a very gradual pulling back of testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine — the TTIQ.

“It will all be gradual but what I think Queenslanders will see is less headlines in the news everyday,” he said.

The disease expert said we won’t see the end of Covid in 2022 but the worry of it will be in the hands of the health professionals rather than every day Queenslanders.

Originally published as ‘We will have a surge’: New CHO reveals details on Covid road ahead