Queensland authorities monitor new Omicron strain after one new Covid case linked to Victorian travellers

Queensland Health has added new Covid-19 exposure sites after the state recorded one new case in hotel quarantine on Saturday.

Queensland Health has added new exposure sites after the state recorded one new case of Covid-19 on Saturday.

Low risk contacts are advised to get tested as soon as practical but quarantine is not required unless you receive a positive test result.

The exposure sites, which are low risk and casual contact, are for the Brisbane Airport on Thursday night and are believed to be connected to a family who travelled from Victoria.

They are for carousel 7 on level 1 of the airport and the adjacent toilets.

The new Queensland case is related to the three people who tested positive on Friday from Victoria.

It comes as Australia is set to follow countries around the world who are scrambling to restrict entry from southern Africa in the wake of the new coronavirus variant which has been labelled the worst yet.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt have met this morning with Secretary of the Department of Health Brendan Murphy and Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly to discuss a response to the development with an announcement expected later today.

Acting chief health officer Peter Aitken said the new case was of no concern to the community – but authorities were keeping a close eye on the B.1.1.529 strain discovered recently in South Africa.

Acting chief health officer Dr Peter Aitken. Picture: Jono Searle

“The other thing we are all watching is the emergence of a new strain in South Africa and that’s part of the ongoing monitoring of Australians,” Dr Aitken said.

“Viruses evolve, lots of new strains come through but what we watch is the effect of those viruses, whether they are more transmittable, whether they have higher clinical impacts … it’s too early to say on any of those questions at the moment.

“There’s enough information that the WHO has declared this variant a variant of concern and there’s an AHPPC meeting this afternoon and we will look at it in more detail this afternoon.”

Dr Aitken said currently there was “no evidence of that strain being present in Queensland or Australia currently”.

He said at this stage, he did not believe the new variant would change the deadlines for international borders reopening in Queensland.

“At the moment from a Queensland perspective we keep doing what we’re doing,” he said.

“International arrivals go into quarantine and we continue on driving up vaccination rates.”

Dr Aitken said more than 8000 people had received vaccines in the past 24 hours and 85.81 per cent of the state had received one vaccination, while 75.32 per cent were fully vaccinated.

Dr Aitken said Queensland was still on track to hit the 80 per cent double vaccinated target by December 10.

Originally published as Queensland authorities monitor new Omicron strain after one new Covid case linked to Victorian travellers