Covid QLD: Ten cases confirmed on day one of ‘new normal’

Queensland has recorded 10 new Covid cases – only one of which is locally acquired – on the first day of the state’s new normal after the borders opened fully for the first time in 141 days. It comes as people are urged to get their booster shots after five months, not six.

Queensland has recorded one new local case of Covid-19 and nine cases in hotel quarantine – seven acquired interstate and two in acquired overseas – on day one of the state’s new normal after the borders reopened.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was vital people came forward to get vaccinated after the state’s border opened to Covid hotspots at 1am, with police saying more than 23,000 applications had already been made for border passes.

Of today’s cases already in quarantine, three were from Victoria, four from NSW and two from overseas.

One case has been in the community on the Sunshine Coast from December 8-12 and was acquired in Byron Bay.

Chief health officer John Gerrard said several recent incursions had come from northern NSW.

Five-year-old Isabel reunites with grandma Martine Calleeuew at Sunshine Coast airport after the first flight from Sydney touches down. Picture: Lachie Millard

Ms Palaszczuk said throughout the pandemic families have had to deal with circumstances beyond their control.

She said there were emotional scenes across the state and that today was a big day for Queensland.

There have been some delays on the border, but the Premier said overall people were pleased they were open.

“I’m very proud of the work that every single Queenslander has done,” she said.

“This is a special time.”

However, she warned that tourists coming into the state who are not abiding by the rules would be “putting the entire state at risk”.

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said 23,500 applications for border passes for people wanting to travel from hotspots had been lodged. Twenty five domestic flights are due to land on the Gold Coast today while 43 are expected in Brisbane.

Ms Carroll said overnight the pass system throughout the night had worked “beautifully”.

Gold Coast acting chief superintendent Rhys Wildman said traffic was flowing freely at all checkpoints.

But he said there had been a number of people who had turned up with a “G” general pass, rather than a pass that shows they had been vaccinated. “Members of the public aren’t taking the time reading and filling out the data,” he said.

With light traffic at Coolangatta’s Griffith Street there was 100 per cent compliance checks.

He said there would be increases in traffic coming into the weekend.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Dr Gerrard said today was an important day with the borders reopening.

He warned there would be cases in coming weeks and months – saying it was inevitable.

How many cases and when they would come back was not clear he said, but he issued a callout to vaccinated Queenslanders who had gone five months since their second dose to get a booster shot, and for the unvaccinated to step up and get the jab.

The previous recommendation had been to wait six months, but Health Minister Yvette D’Ath welcomed people coming getting their booster shot now it has been reduced to five months.

Queenslanders can get a Pfizer booster shot at any state vaccination centres and could get both Pfizer and Moderna at pharmacies or local GPs.

“We know that boosters are important when we see more cases of Omicron coming into Queensland,” she said.

Dr Gerrard said that there were “some anecdotal suggestions” that Omicron is a slightly less severe variant, but he added the booster is “really important” in developing strong immunity against Omicron and all of Covid.

He said data is being collected on the effectiveness of the vaccination against the virus through laboratory and human studies.

“What we are seeing is that within the first five months of being vaccinated there is good neutralisation of the virus,” he said.

“But that wains after five months.”

He said there would be a new plan as Queensland goes forward with the pandemic.

“We will be focusing less and less on the individual cases and more and more on the trends and looking to see if we are getting exponential increases in numbers in the community and or in the hospital,” he said.

The vast majority of people with Covid-19 in the future will be managed at home.

“We have systems set up to start managing patients at home.”

Market Square, corner of McCullough Street and Mains Road, Sunnybank, was added as an exposure site. Picture: Richard Walker

Dr Gerrard said the original Doherty modelling suggested once the borders opened there would be a lag of several weeks to months before covid cases surged.

He said he assumed the general peak would be as it starts to get cooler in 3-4 months.

He reminded Queenslanders that vaccinated people “don’t get very sick at all”.

He said previous projections were based on the Doherty modelling but said “no one” expected the state to reach 80 per cent so quickly.

“I thought we would be hard pushed to get to 70 per cent,” he said.

“The Doherty model hasn’t looked at 90 per cent”.

Dr Gerrard said “obviously” Omicron had thrown Queensland a curveball but early data suggests that the vaccine is effective, particularly with a third dose, against the variant.

“It is likely that this [three doses] will be very effective,” he said.

The Premier thanked health care workers and the police for their effort in getting the state to this day.

“Never did I think we would reach the stage where we are almost at 90 per cent first dose and we have not had the large numbers of deaths that we have seen in other parts of the world.”

The new case came after Queensland Health overnight added venues in Sunnybank and Eight Miles Plains to its list of exposure sites.

Six new exposure sites were added just after 7pm Sunday, including a close contact site at Pho Hien Vuong Restaurant in Market Square, Sunnybank, on Thursday December 9.

The men’s toilet near the restaurant, the northeast lift in Market Square and the Market Square car park were all also listed.

Meanwhile, Liberty Service Station in Eight Mile Plains was listed as a low risk contact exposure site also from Thursday, December 9.

In terms of vaccinations, 88.32 per cent of Queenslanders have had their first dose while 81.23 are fully vaccinated.

The Premier said it was important to keep Queensland children safe until they could be vaccinated.

“Families with children want to know that they can go into a cafe or restaurant knowing everyone is fully vaccinated,” she said.

Queenslanders have again been urged to download their vaccination certificate to the check-in app ahead of Friday when vaccinated people will need to show they’ve had the jab when entering certain venues.

Ms Palaszczuk said tourist bookings are very high, but with a lot of people, health authorities know that the virus is going to spread.

“It is really important that people coming into our state are checking in,”

“Queenslanders do this all the time.”

Ms D’Ath said a case on the Gold Coast that was confirmed on Saturday was a false positive and would be taken off Queensland’s tally.

“This is great, because it means we have not had any transmission in the community through casual contacts thus far despite the number of different incursions announced on the Gold Coast in the last week,” she said.

Originally published as Covid QLD: Ten cases confirmed on day one of ‘new normal’