Five new cases, Cairns link revealed as mass jab hub rolled out

Queensland has recorded five new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, four of them linked to the Brisbane schools cluster. It comes as authorities reveals a link between two cases reported in Cairns in the past week.

Queensland has recorded five new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, all of them in South East Queensland as the source of a mystery Cairns case is discovered.

Four of the cases are a result of community transmission and all linked to the Indooroopilly school cluster.

All of the Brisbane cases were detected in home quarantine. One was a staff member at Ironside State School, another is a parent at that school, one is a household contact of a Brisbane Boys Grammar School student and the fourth is another household contact of a student at Ironside

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre where a Pfizer vaccination hub will be established. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

A fifth case was a returned traveller from the Philippines, detected in hotel quarantine.

As Cairns starts the first full day of its shock snap lockdown, authorities have linked the two recent cases in the city.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the Sunday case of a taxi driver who was infectious in the community was linked to the previous case of a marine pilot who tested positive last week.

It is believed the taxi driver caught the virus after the marine pilot was a passenger, travelling from his home to Cairns airport.

She said she knew the Cairns community would “step up” during this time, with all contacts of the taxi driver now being contact traced and going into home quarantine.

People in Cairns have been told not to wait for a call from Queensland Health and should check exposure sites and be tested when required.

She said the Gold Coast case who tested positive across the weekend was still being worked through after testing positive and then negative twice, and so it was important for testing numbers to be high on the Gold Coast.

“We have no idea when this virus is next going to pop up,” she said.

Both Ms Palaszczuk and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said Monday’s case numbers were excellent news, but appealed for people to continue to get tested.

Ten people can gather to play sport, but it can not be contact sport.

Dr Young said “if you’re questioning whether you should do something, you probably can’t”.

“If your sport is one that involves contact with someone, then it can’t go ahead.”

She said a dance class with no contact and everyone was spaced out, then that was fine.

Tennis and golf was okay so long as there were small groups and everyone was socially distanced and wore masks when necessary.

“What I don’t want to see is kids from a whole lot of different schools coming together,” she said.

“So it’s really important that people use their common sense because they’ve done so beautifully over the past 8 days.”

Today's media conference was held at the Brisbane Convention Centre at South Brisbane, where a Pfizer-only mass vaccination centre has been established.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the mass vaccination centre was about “supercharging” the vaccine effort, and making it as convenient for as many people as possible.

The centre will open on Wednesday, with more supplies of Pfizer on the way.

“But we remind people, this is not a walk-in venue,” Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said.

Despite this, the centre will vaccinate 3000 per day by the weekend, she said.

She urged all Queenslanders aged over 16 to get online and register for a vaccine.

The Premier defended not offering AstraZeneca at the mass vaccine centre, saying that was offered at GPs and at pharmacies.

She said people already had that option now to book in with their GP or make a chemist appointment to be vaccinated.

As the South East opens up, Dr Young said she was aware of reports that some Brisbane venues had opened back up yesterday after lockdown at full capacity, when they should be operating at 50 per cent.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announces a new mass vaccination hub at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said police had the ability to retrospectively investigate businesses that were not following the current rules, so it was important they did.

Ms Palaszczuk would not comment on the situation in NSW and questions around what restrictions could ease there once the vaccination rate reached 50 per cent.

But she said she was concerned about what was happening there.

“If we have to go harder we will,” she said about border stops, indicating authorities could return to intercepting all cars, rather than relying on random intercepts.

“They’ve still got a lot of cases down there and it would depend on what happens in the next weeks and months,” she said.

Originally published as Five new cases, Cairns link revealed as mass jab hub rolled out