Queensland records 3118 new Covid cases with one fully vaccinated man in intensive care

Queensland has recorded 3118 new Covid cases overnight while chief health officer Dr John Gerrard has warned of a “substantial wave” of cases coming earlier than expected.

Queensland has recorded 3118 new cases of Covid overnight, with chief health officer Dr John Gerrard warning a “substantial wave” of cases was coming earlier than expected.

Dr Gerrard said he was optimistic for 2022 with the peak number of cases expected to come in a “substantial wave” earlier than predicted.

He said experts were unsure what would follow the peak, and whether subsequent waves of infections would follow.

A man in his 50s is in a stable condition in ICU with the Delta variant.

Dr Gerrard said the man has received two doses of the vaccine.

“Even if you’re vaccinated it is possible to get quite sick,” he said.

There are 11,697 active cases in Queensland.

There are 2227 people being cared for in-home and 126 people in hospital.

Queensland’s fully-vaccinated rate has reached 86.3 per cent.

Dr Gerrard said Queensland would continue to see Covid-19 cases increase across the state in January.

Chief health officer Dr John Gerrard. Picture: Zak Simmonds

He said people must stay at home on New Year’s Eve if they felt ill.

“If you have any respiratory symptoms there is a good chance it’s going to be Covid,” he said.

Dr Gerrard said he did not have updated numbers from the Torres Strait, but said they were being managed by the department.

He said testing queues would become less busy, but acknowledged there was still a shortage of rapid antigen tests.

Dr Gerrard said people would still need to get a PCR test if they were ill.

“If you have symptoms of a respiratory infection, no matter how mild, the test to have is a PCR,” he said.

Dr Gerrard said early projections based on the current level of hospitalisations suggested Queensland’s hospitals could cope with an increase in cases.

There are 193 health staff infected with Covid-19 and 165 are in quarantine because they are a close contact.

Dr Gerrard said the “most useful number to look at” was the cases in intensive care.

“Most of those hospitalised are not particularly sick,” he said.

The state’s top doctor revealed there was consideration about whether to limit visitors to aged-care facilities “in the coming weeks”, but no decision had been made.

He said Queensland was “not going backwards” and said people should make their own decisions whether to book an international holiday in 2022.

“We have no plan to deviate from the roadmap – they’ll take their own risk overseas,” he said.

Dr Gerrard said “for the time being” the Check-in app would remain.

“We review these things all the time,” he said.

He said there was no consideration being given to remove the vaccination mandate for people visiting public areas.

Police Minister Mark Ryan also revealed Queensland would “take the health advice” about the future of the check-in app after New South Wales revealed it would ditch the measure at the end of January.

Earlier today it was announced that 12 new cases have been detected in the vulnerable Indigenous community of Cherbourg, more than triple the previous day’s total.

It comes after 2222 new cases were announced on Thursday, with the state’s total active cases surging to 8586.

Meanwhile a new definition of a close contact came into effect in Queensland overnight following a snap national cabinet meeting on Thursday.

Originally published as Queensland records 3118 new Covid cases with one fully vaccinated man in intensive care