Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young takes dig at hotel quarantine

Queensland’s top public health official has taken another dig at hotel quarantine as she explained why positive cases have been allowed to isolate at home.

Queensland’s chief health officer Jeannette Young has taken another dig at hotel quarantine while explaining why some positive cases have been allowed to isolate at home.

Dr Young was asked on Thursday morning why some confirmed cases during the state’s latest outbreak had been able to stay at home when Queenslanders with Covid-19 were usually taken straight to hospital.

The Queensland Health policy changed recently amid the state’s largest outbreak since last year, with only the sickest prioritised for hospital care.

Dr Young said a lot of the cases were children who were “very well”, so there was no need for them to go to hospital.

Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young took another dig at hotel quarantine. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

“A lot of these cases are children, so as long as the parents are comfortable and they are happy to manage it, and a lot of the parents very sensibly just went, ‘We can look after our children’,” she said.

“A lot of these parents are doctors, so it was just sensible to work through it.

“We now have 122 cases and if they don’t need to be in hospital then it makes sense for them to be at home.”

There are 65 positive Queenslanders in hospital at the moment.

Dr Young said it wasn’t a “blanket approval” that every positive case got to isolate at home but was a “very nuanced process” based on the individual circumstances of each case.

She said her concern had always been trying to manage people who were confirmed cases in hotel quarantine.

“That has always been my concern because we know that hotels are not good at stopping the spread,” Dr Young said.

“They are pretty good but we have seen time and time again another case throughout the country in hotels.

“But these (parents) have already been exposed, they have been in their home, we know they are at higher risk of becoming infected, so they are already there and they can look after their children.”

Queensland recorded 16 new local cases of Covid-19 on Thursday.

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