Sunshine Coast Covid: Health officials continue to hunt missing link to Delta outbreak which triggered school testing

The reason why three elite Sunshine Coast schools were urged to have all students and staff tested for Covid-19 can be revealed as investigations continue into what caused the delta outbreak in Brisbane.

Health officials won’t rule out further school testing as the hunt continues for the missing link between two returned travellers – one from Buderim – and the Indooroopilly cluster.

Sunshine Coast Grammar School, Immanuel Lutheran College and Matthew Flinders Anglican College students and staff underwent Covid-19 testing this week as a precaution to rule out any link to the Brisbane Delta outbreak which has sparked the ongoing lockdown.

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young last week explained how she suspected the Delta strain had spread.

Two travellers on a plane from Singapore landed in Brisbane on June 29 and were placed into hotel quarantine where they tested positive for Covid-19.

One went to Gold Coast University Hospital then flew home to Western Australia after treatment while the second person was taken to Sunshine Coast University Hospital and then went home to Buderim once recovered.

A University of Queensland medical student was suspected to have contracted the virus from someone who had been in contact with the travellers.

The student tested positive on July 30 and then was believed to have given the virus to a 17-year-old Indooroopilly High School student she tutored.

Health officials were still trying to determine the link between the travellers and medical student as of late Thursday, August 5.

Serology had revealed the 17-year-old student had the same variant as the two travellers.

The Sunshine Plaza, along with other major shopping centres, are ghost towns during the current lockdown. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Health officials were still unable to determine which of the two travellers had been the source of the transmission.

It was understood the returned Buderim traveller had links to one of the three Sunshine Coast private schools that underwent testing this week and the three schools had been targeted for testing due to their proximity to each other.

As of late Thursday there had been no positive tests recorded from any of the testing undertaken at the three Sunshine Coast schools.

Health officials had ruled out a schoolboys rugby state championships event at Padua College on July 22-25 as the trigger for the testing, despite students from at least one of the three Sunshine Coast private schools competing at the event.

They said further testing of other schools in the region hadn’t been ruled out and could happen if required but the negative results so far were encouraging signs.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said the department was doing “precautionary surveillance testing” at several schools in the region.

“This is not because of a current known case in any of those school communities,” the spokeswoman said.

“We would like to rule out any possible link to the cluster in the Brisbane schools by conducting these tests.”

Originally published as Sunshine Coast Covid: Health officials continue to hunt missing link to Delta outbreak which triggered school testing