Three people with coronavirus in Queensland spent five days in Melbourne
Three people confirmed to have contracted the deadly coronavirus were part of a tour and stopped in Victoria for five days before heading to Queensland.
The three people infected with the coronavirus in Queensland spent five days in Melbourne before flying to the Gold Coast.
Overnight it was revealed that an eight-year-old boy was diagnosed with the deadly virus at the Gold Coast University Hospital where he had already been under quarantine.
He is the third confirmed case in Queensland and the 13th in Australia. The boy had been travelling in the same group as a 44-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman from Hubei Province, the epicentre of the coronavirus in China.
The tour group, including six other people, had travelled from Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei Province, via Singapore, into Melbourne, on January 22.
Queensland Chief Medical Officer Jeannette Young told reporters the group had spent five days in Melbourne before taking a Tigerair TT566 flight to the Gold Coast.
It is not clear where they went in Melbourne, but they had not felt unwell at the time as the the disease lays dormant for 14 days.
The TigerAir flight arrived at 8.45pm on January 27, but on the way the 44-year-old man reported feeling unwell.
“He then went to his accommodation and became increasingly unwell,” Ms Young said.
He was taken to the Gold Coast University Hospital at about 3.30pm on January 28 where he was tested and diagnosed with novel coronavirus.
On January 29, Queensland Health revealed eight other people from the same tour group were in isolation in the same hospital.
A day later it was revealed the woman was diagnosed and overnight an eight year old boy was confirmed to have the virus.
All three are from Hubei province which is at the epicentre of the coronavirus in China.
The child is in a stable condition in isolation. He’s believed to be the only child among the 13 cases in Australia diagnosed so far.
Message from Dr Young, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer: If you have been to China in the last 14 days and you are sick you must immediately see a doctor.
— Queensland Health (@qldhealthnews) February 4, 2020
It’s understood there were nine people in their tour group.
They arrived on the Gold Coast from Melbourne on Tigerair flight TT566 on January 27.
It’s unclear at this stage whether the boy caught the virus in Wuhan or while travelling in Australia with the other two infected members of his tour group.
All nine members of the tour group have been in isolation in the Gold Coast University Hospital since last Wednesday, when the man was diagnosed with the virus.
Queensland Health is in the process of contacting passengers on Tiger Airways flight TT566 on January 27 after the patients tested positive to coronavirus.
Passengers have been advised to self-isolate in their homes or hotels and be alert for symptoms including fever, couth, sore threat, fatigue and difficulty breathing and contact a GP if necessary.
KOREAN PUPIL ASKED TO LEAVE OVER VIRUS FEAR
A South Korean girl has been asked to leave her dormitory at a Sydney boarding school amid concern about the spread of coronavirus — even though she had not been to China since visiting Shanghai in October.
Last week, the NSW government last week asked parents of pupils who travelled to any part of China to quarantine their children until they clear the 14-day incubation period for the virus.
The federal government said only those who had been to Wuhan or in contact with an infected person should be concerned.
However, Ravenswood School for Girls on Sydney’s north shore has gone further saying any pupil who has been to a country with confirmed cases should not attend the school for 14 days.
Peter Kim, a South Korean father of a girl who was asked to leave the Ravenswood told the Sydney Morning Herald he believed the school is “massively overreacting”.
“(The school is) massively overreacting in these difficult times, at the expense of the wellbeing of young students who, in my daughter’s case, were really relying on the premise that a school is going to provide a second home for them,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the shcool said: “We object in the strongest possible manner to any suggestion that we have acted inappropriately or insensitively towards this student or any other affected by the measures taken around the outbreak of coronavirus.
“We followed the World Health Organisations advice and heatmap in a rapidly unfolding situation.
“We do not step back from taking the strongest and most cautious advice from WHO, as we have a duty to protect all students not just those who had been in areas covered by the warnings or marked red on the map.”
AUSTRALIAN CASES ON THE RISE
This comes as two more confirmed cases were confirmed in South Australia.
The man and woman in their 60s remain in a stable condition in isolation at the Royal Adelaide Hospital after tests confirmed the presence of the virus.
SA medical authorities said it was now known that one of the patients was showing symptoms while aboard China Southern Airlines flight CZ663.
It was initially thought that neither were showing symptoms on the flight from Guangzhou in southern China, arriving on January 21.
“Anybody who was on this flight is encouraged to contact the communicable disease branch of SA Health and discuss whether or not they have developed symptoms themselves,” chief medical officer Nicola Spurrier said on Monday.
“We will be trying to make contact with as many people on that flight as possible, particularly people who were situated close to these two cases.”
It was also confirmed two people showing symptoms were taken from a domestic flight that arrived in Adelaide from interstate on Monday and would be tested for coronavirus.
Of the 13 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Australia so far, three have now been diagnosed in Queensland.
There are four in New South Wales, four in Victoria and two in South Australia.
In response to the new cases in Queensland, the state’s Health Minister Steven Miles is rushing new laws through parliament to extend his existing health emergency order from one week to three months.
The move will give health officers more time to require the quarantine or isolation of suspected coronavirus cases and force people to undergo medical checks and tests.
The bill was introduced into state parliament on Tuesday, the first sitting day of 2020.
Mr Miles wants it to pass the house by Thursday. It would remain in place for 12 months and apply solely to the novel coronavirus.
More than 400 people have been assessed for coronavirus since screening started at Brisbane International Airport on Sunday.
With AAP
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