Coronavirus: Child becomes 13th case in Australia as evacuees wait for freedom

An eight-year-old boy in Queensland is placed in isolation after testing positive to the virus.

An eight year old boy from Wuhan has become the 13th person in Australia to be confirmed to have coronavirus.

The boy was a member of the tour group that travelled to Queensland at the end of January with a man and woman who were both confirmed with coronavirus.

Queensland’s chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said: “The child remains in isolation at the Gold Coast University Hospital and is currently stable.”

Professor Paul Kelly told Sunrise: “He is not particularly sick. But it is the third case from the same tour group and I would like to stress that, actually, it is very close contact with two known cases.”

Passengers on TigerAir TT566 have been advised to self-isolate in their homes or hotels after the patients tested positive.

Confirmed cases in Australia include four in NSW, four in Victoria, two in South Australia and three in Queensland.

Meanwhile, Professor Kelly confirmed that about 50 Australians are on an Air New Zealand flight that left Wuhan this morning. The Australians onboard are expected to be transferred to Christmas Island, which has turned into a sanctuary for 238 Australians already evacuated from Wuhan.

‘Island prison’ turns sanctuary for evacuees

As their planes landed at our “island priso,” children clutched their parents’ hands or their toys, some dragged their brightly-coloured suitcases behind them and others were so tired they had to be carried off government charter flights in their parents’ arms. One little boy announced his arrival at Christmas Island by turning to media cameras with his hands on his hips, swivelling side to side. A girl with eyes smiling above her face mask waved from behind a bus window as she was driven to the repurposed immigration detention centre with her family for 14 days in quarantine.

Wuhan evacuees settle into the North West Point detention centre. Picture: Colin Murty

The evacuees who walked onto the Christmas Island tarmac in the early hours of Tuesday had been awake for up to 27 hours before they even boarded the rescue flight to Australia, a Qantas 747. After health checks and a six-hour delay in Wuhan, 240 men, women and children made the nine hour flight to the Western Australian airbase Learmonth.

Among them were rollerbladers Rob Kellett, from Brisbane, and his friend Josh Nielsen, from Sydney, who were living in Wuhan in China’s Hubei province when the disease was detected at a seafood market there in December.

Brisbane man Rob Kellett (right) and his friend Josh Nielsen, from Sydney, in Wuhan. Picture: YouTube

They documented the evacuation from Wuhan in a video that showed airport staff wearing face masks and rubber gloves as they handed out plane tickets.

“Not what we wanted from our time in Wuhan but better safe than sorry hey?” Mr Kellett posted on Instagram.

At Learmonth, no passengers showed symptoms of coronavirus but two of a heavily pregnant woman and her partner were flown to isolation in Perth because there is no maternity ward on Christmas Island. For the others, the next leg was literally a military operation that took nine more hours.

When the Australian citizens and permanent residents touched down on the remote Australian territory best known for phosphate and immigration detention, disaster specialists from the Australian Medical Assistance Team were waiting for them with the army.

Wuhan refugees arrive at Christmas Island Airport yesterday. Picture: Colin Murty

The Australian Defence Force will run the detention centre and its kitchen for the next fortnight while the Wuhan evacuees are assesses daily for signs of coronavirus.

Health minister Greg Hunt said there were no confirmed cases of coronavirus among the arrivals but 14 people were examined more closely than the others on arrival at the detention centre and two were tested as a precaution.

Families from Wuhan stroll through the grounds of the North West Point detention centre. Picture: Colin Murty

By late Tuesday families were walking in the grounds of the detention centre. They cannot leave, and the gates are locked, but they will have far more freedom than the thousands of asylum seekers who were once held there including wifi and unrestricted use of devices such as mobile phones.