Coronavirus: Fever clinic set up in Airlie Beach as sewage tests detect COVID-19
A fever clinic has been set up in Airlie Beach after sewage tests revealed possible undetected coronavirus in the community.
A fever clinic has been set up in the north Queensland tourism town of Airlie Beach, after sewage tests revealed possible undetected coronavirus in the community.
The University of Queensland has been studying sewage in regions popular with visitors across Queensland, Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said.
Recent results of the “sewage surveillance program” showed possible, previously undetected, COVID-19 in Airlie Beach, the mainland gateway to the Whitsunday Islands.
“Some results from that program have recently suggested there may have been, a case, of COVID-19 in the Airlie Beach area, and with the utmost of caution the Mackay HHS (hospital and health service) is standing up a fever clinic in Airlie Beach today,” Mr Miles said.
“This is not considered a high risk … we simply want to see an increase in the level of testing in that area, so we can assure ourselves that there isn’t cases of community transmission there that we don’t know about, so we can keep our tourism industry there safe and open.”
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the sewage tests two weeks ago came up “potentially positive” but said the government was not “quite sure” what it meant.
“We know Airlie Beach is a tourist destination, so a lot of people travel there from within Queensland and indeed from other states where the borders aren’t closed.”
“So it’s important we are just a little bit more alert wherever we’ve got tourists coming, because the risk is a little bit higher … we don’t know what this means, because we’ve had a number of ships off the coast there with positive cases.”
“We’re just not sure where this might have come from, but it doesn’t really matter, the response is the important thing,” Dr Young said.
Queensland recorded two new COVID-19 cases overnight; both are in the southeast and both are linked to the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre cluster. Dr Young said that cluster appeared to be under control, but it was too early to say authorities had “solved it”.
More than 14,000 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours, and there are 30 active cases.
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