Coronavirus: Annastacia Palaszczuk washes hands over hospital Covid breach

Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to apologise for a blunder that plunged 3.8 million Queenslanders into a three-day lockdown.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk watches Health Minister Yvette D'Ath during a Covid press conference on Wednesday. Picture: Dan Peled

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to apologise for a breach in hospital infection control that plunged 3.8 million Queenslanders into a snap three-day lockdown.

A state-employed hospital receptionist, 19, was allowed to work shifts outside a Covid-19 isolation ward despite not being vaccinated.

The woman spent 10 infectious days in the community, including a holiday to Townsville and Magnetic Island, and passed the virus onto her younger brother.

Ms Palaszczuk admitted the receptionist should have gotten a jab but insisted Health Minister Yvette D’Ath was not to blame because “she doesn't go out and do the vaccinations”. “The Health Minister is doing an excellent job during this Covid pandemic and she is just as annoyed as everybody,” she said. “There will be a full and thorough investigation and someone will be held responsible.”

The Premier has no idea how many hospital staff employed by the state have been vaccinated because the health department has not kept track of inoculation rates.

In response to a series of questions from The Australian, Queensland Health on Tuesday admitted a third of staff were yet to receive their first jab, or were not documented as being vaccinated.

Ms Palaszczuk was also unable to say how many unvaccinated health workers have travelled to vulnerable Aboriginal communities, because it is not mandatory.

There have been three cases linked to Queensland’s lockdown-provoking outbreak so far. The original source was an unvaccinated helicopter pilot who travelled between Australia and Indonesia “several times” during the pandemic. He infected the receptionist who worked immediately outside Prince Charles Hospital‘s Covid ward, who then passed the virus onto her school-aged brother.

In a bid to blame-shift the lockdown crisis and threat of mass outbreak onto the federal government, Ms Palaszczuk said if the helicopter pilot had been vaccinated “they wouldn't have brought the Delta strain here”.

“If people are coming to Australia, why are they not getting their vaccinations because it‘s overseas arrivals bringing this Delta virus into our state,” she said.

Federal Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews, who represents the Gold Coast, said the Premier was trying to “distract from her own quarantine failures”.

“The reason that we are in lockdown here, particularly in South East Queensland, but also in parts of northern Queensland are because of failures by the Palaszczuk government,” she said.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Ms Andrews pointed out Queensland had allowed film and sports stars into the state.

Queensland’s chief health officer will not be ordered to rewrite public health directions because Ms D’Ath said there had been a dispute about whether people working directly outside Covid wards needed to be vaccinated. “I will fix that definition, I will widen it so there won‘t be a grey area,” she said.

“Everyone in a hospital or health service in Queensland will know who is in the 1a group so they will have to be vaccinated and if they don‘t, there will be consequences.”

Ms D’Ath said all health workers have been offered the jab and she believed the receptionist “just didn’t take the option up”.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said it was “absurd” that Queensland Health had not kept track of its own staff’s vaccination numbers. “What is unfolding is an absolute failure of the health system in this state,” he said.

He said state and federal governments needed to: “stop the squabbling, stop the games, stop the politicking and get people, get those vaccines into their arms”.

Almost 5400 people who have visited the more than 50 exposure sites are under police-enforced quarantine notices.