State faces critical 72 hours as state sweats on quarantine tests

Queenslanders will know within days whether Covid-19 is still circulating or if the state has yet again escaped another outbreak.

A critical 72 hours will determine whether a cluster of the highly-contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 has infected 6000 people locked in quarantine or if Queensland has escaped a major outbreak.

Multiple positive community cases and a growing list of exposure sites have plunged 6664 close contacts into home and hotel quarantine since late June as authorities scramble to contain an outbreak of Covid-19.

It is the largest number of people in quarantine since the start of the pandemic.

Many are nearing the end of their 14-day quarantine period and health officials hope the final Covid-19 tests will prove the Delta strain has been contained.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said authorities were closely monitoring for any cases.

“While it’s good news that we are seeing high testing numbers and low numbers of community cases currently, we still need to be careful and cannot be complacent,” she said.

“We need to make sure we detect any cases we’re not aware of as quickly as possible so we remind people to monitor the list of exposure sites as new sites are added every day and follow the health advice.”

Chief health officer Jeannette Young said there were 5177 people in home quarantine and more than 3000 domestic and international travellers in the state’s hotels.

Dr Young said contact tracers were doing “a lot of hard work” to ensure exposure venues and people who could be infectious had been located.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young during a media conference to provide a Covid update. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said officers would conduct random checks on people in home quarantine to ensure they had not left and put the community at risk.

He said 1200 checks had been completed in the past week and “by and large the compliance has been very good”.

“It is a reminder for people in home quarantine that you are not permitted to leave unless for very few specific reasons.”

Queensland recorded one new community case of Covid-19 on Tuesday and five in hotel quarantine.

The locally acquired case is a Kangaroo Point woman who is a close contact to a previous positive case within the Alpha cluster.

Dr Young said the woman was asymptomatic and it is not known how long she was in the community while infectious.

The woman is a student nurse, training through Griffith University and doing a placement at Logan Hospital, however she was not on campus since June 15 and only visited the hospital for one hour.

Dr Young said the case was “low risk, but of course we are taking it very very seriously”.

Separately, a Cairns woman who scaled two balconies to escape hotel quarantine and visit her mum has been slapped with a $2500 fine and thrown back into quarantine.

Dalassa Rittia Diane Pau, 22, was placed into the Pacific Hotel on Friday after returning from Sydney before police realised on Monday afternoon she was missing.

She was later found at a unit in Cairns.

Pau appeared in the Cairns Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning and pleaded guilty to fail to comply with Covid-19 public health direction, unregulated high risk activities and wilful damage.

Police had alleged she had been staying on the fourth floor when she scaled two balconies and damaged a door during her escape.

Queensland Police Service Acting Assistant Commissioner Chris Hodgman said the woman’s actions were “dangerous (and) foolhardy”.

“This is the second time in a couple of weeks where people have put their lives at risk to come out of the Pacific Hotel,” he said.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said more than 3 million Covid tests had been undertaken across the state since the start of the pandemic with 22,000 tests done yesterday.

She said more than 200,000 extra Pfizer doses would be coming into Queensland in July.

Ms D’Ath said 64,350 Pfizer doses at week would come into Queensland community vaccination clinics – that’s 10,000 more than June – while 168,000 would go into GP clinics.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she would ‘move heaven and earth’ to get the Queensland population vaccinated.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk speaks during a media conference to provide a Covid update. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

“The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can open up,” she said.

New Zealand is expected to review its ongoing closure to Queensland on Wednesday as it reopens to other Australian states.

Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said the bubble was “extremely important”, describing it as a step towards hope.

He said Queensland stood to benefit the most from the resumption of travel across the Tasman, because of the number of airports in the state that have direct access to New Zealand.

Mr Gschwind also suggested that the recent border closures, brought about by community cases, ahead of the school holidays had been nothing short of catastrophic to the industry.

He said it would take a while for confidence to be restored.

Originally published as State faces critical 72 hours as state sweats on quarantine tests