Covid Qld: Latest cases a day after unvaccinated Uber driver tests positive

A Tweed Shire Covid-19 outbreak has the Gold Coast on edge as a truck driver also tested positive and an unvaccinated Uber driver remains “very sick” and could be moved to ICU.

The Gold Coast has two new Covid-19 cases on its doorstep, with revelations of an outbreak in the Tweed Shire.

The Northern NSW Local Health District said the two new cases were linked to a previously reported case and were under investigation to determine any public exposure sites.

The Courier-Mail understands one of the cases is a man from northern NSW who presented to Tweed Heads District Hospital earlier this week for treatment of another condition and showed symptoms of Covid-19.

Staff who had contact with the man before he tested positive are believed to have been ordered into isolation.

It is feared members of his family may also have been infected.

He and the other Tweed case were taken to Lismore Hospital for specialist treatment.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Treasurer Cameron Dick at Marsden State High School in Logan today. Picture: Jono Searle/NCA NewsWire

It comes as a Gold Coast Uber driver remains seriously ill in Gold Coast University Hospital after testing positive earlier this week following a visit to Melbourne.

Police are investigating whether the man, identified as Duran Raman, 36, entered Queensland illegally after being refused entry at the border.

The Northern NSW Local Health District said there had now been 111 cases reported in the region since the state’s horror Delta outbreak began in Sydney in June.

The Tweed cases were among five new a Covid-19 cases in northern NSW, with another two in Kyogle and one in Clarence Valley.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has so far ruled out another lockdown on the Gold Coast because of what she described as “quite good” vaccination levels.

The spate of new cases could be cause for concern for Queensland police and Queensland Health as they grapple over whether to remove border checkpoints when the state reopens on December 17.

The Premier has previously hosed down talk of another Gold Coast lockdown.

Earlier, Ms Palaszczuk confirmed there had been no new local cases overnight, but five acquired overseas, a day after an unvaccinated Uber driver plunged the southeast into a new Covid-19 crisis.

All five new cases were detected in hotel quarantine.

There is concern, however around a truck driver who’d had one dose of the vaccine and was active in the community for two days who has tested positive for Covid-19 in Victoria.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the truck driver was infectious in Queensland on October 18 and 19.

Thursday’s listed exposure sites at Acacia Ridge and Stafford are linked to the truck driver who was infectious in the community before returning to Victoria.

The Gold Coast Uber driver who was infectious in the city for up to 10 days, failed to use the Check in Qld app and is being investigated for illegally crossing the border will likely be sent to an ICU.

Dr Young said on Friday morning she was “sorry to report” Duran Raman, 36, has been “very unwell”.

“They (Gold Coast University Hospital medicos) are keeping a very close eye on him,” she said.

“He is on high-flow oxygen and he will probably need to go into intensive care.

“That is terrible. He is a very young, fit man who was not vaccinated and he is now extremely sick.”

Ms Palaszczuk said Mr Raman was a fit young man in his 30s but was unvaccinated and is now seriously ill, serving as a reminder as to why everyone needed to be vaccinated.

Duran Raman is in Gold Coast University Hospital, so sick he is unable to speak to health authorities.

The Premier has ramped up the “get vaccinated” rhetoric, urging Queenslanders – particularly those in the regions – to get vaccinated before it’s too late.

It comes ahead of tomorrow’s “Super Saturday” vaccination blitz.

Pop-up vaccination clinics will be set up at up to 100 high schools across the state.

Vaccination rates across Queensland have increased to 73.66% first-dose and 58.2% fully vaccinated.

Speaking from Logan, which sits below the state’s average for first and second doses, the Premier issued a ‘wake up call’ to locals.

“You are trailing the state average, and this means that you are more exposed to a potential outbreak,” the Premier said.

For the people of Marsden and Crestmead, you only have a second dose rate of 36 per cent, and that is well behind the state average unfortunately.

Police are investi­gating if Mr Raman was turned away twice at the border in ­recent weeks before finally breaching it illegally while sick with the deadly Delta strain, and then spending 10 days infectious in the ­community.

He also failed to use the QR check-in since early September, making it “very difficult to work out where he has been in the community”, especially given authorities say he is so stricken with the virus he is unable to speak.

“He is so sick that we’re having difficulties talking to him and getting information from him,” Chief health officer Jeannette Young said.

Dr Young said it was likely he would be put into ICU.

Also of concern to authorities is the sighting of more than half of the shoppers taking to one of the Gold Coast region’s busiest retail precincts without masks.

Within hours of Dr Young announcing Mr Duran was infectious in the community for 10 days, there were more Coast shoppers spotted without a mask than those wearing one.

The Courier-Mail observed 416 unmasked adults, who weren’t eating or drinking, wandering the indoor area of the busy shopping centre during a 90-minute window on Thursday afternoon.

Ms Palaszczuk said with up to 100 schools serving as pop-up vaccination clinics this weekend there were no excuses not to get jabbed.

Dr Young said the school vaccination clinics were not just open for students at the school but the whole community.

“Who wants to have Covid in Queensland over Christmas, New Year?” she said. “I certainly don’t.”

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said any children planning to go to schoolies needed to make sure they used this weekend to get vaccinated in order to be fully protected.

Of eligible Queenslanders, 73.66 per cent have received one dose while 58.72 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

Originally published as Covid Qld: Latest cases a day after unvaccinated Uber driver tests positive