I have removed Greater Brisbane from its listing as a Commonwealth hotspot, effective from 12:01am on 17 January.
This is a time for the people of Brisbane to congratulate themselves for undertaking the short and sharp restrictions that have enabled public health officials to get ahead of the virus, backed up by consistent testing numbers. It is also a time to thank all staff at Queensland Health for their work in tracing contacts and getting to the stage where I am able to say there is low risk of transmission of the variant B.1.1.7 in Greater Brisbane.
Questions should be asked about why it seems all 7 were not isolating. Other states have been asking close contacts of close contacts to isolate.
It will be interesting to see how the media treats this, it’s almost the exact scenario that Victoria was in in early october when 5 people in a house in the northern suburbs tested positive and Dan Andrews and the contact tracers were crucified for their incompetence and chaos. But in that case they had already been isolating for some time and were some of the last cases reported, so didn’t spread it.
Was the 1st contact positive at that point though? The shifts worked at the hospital was the 12/13/14th Jan whilst the 1st positive was advised on the 16th… so did they do anything wrong?
That was my original point, everyone in that household was a close contacts of a close contacts, any other state would have had that household isolating regardless of whether the first one tested positive or not. If NSW are only asking the immediate close contacts to isolate it could go a long way to explain why it takes them so long to get their clusters under control.
Premier says a number of big employers he spoke to prior to Christmas told him… staff surveys and worker feedback was that there was only appetite for 50% of workers coming back on site - whatever the health setting-Hedi Murphey twitter
the cho of VIC got asked would Melbourne and victoria ever go back into a hard lockdown:’’ I certainly hope not, we need to be ever vigilant, you can sometimes get clusters to emerge wheres there are unknown source cases and it’s geographically spread and the numbers are all of a sudden,20,30,40 cases a day , if that occurs, we had to have that on the table as one of the tools, but it is clear that we got on top of the black rock cluster by virtue of the primary and secondary close contacts quarantining, that works every well, yes a lot of people were in quartine, but the rest of Melbourne and victoria really carried on as per normal
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that several NSW border communities will become green zone from 6pm tonight, meaning people travelling to those communities do not need to get tested upon arrival back in Victoria. The local government areas include Albury, Balranald, Bega Valley, Berrigan, Broken Hill, Edward River, Federation, Greater Hume, Hay, Lockhart, Murray River, Murrumbidgee, Snowy Monaro, Snowy Valleys, Wagga Wagga and Wentworth.
Unaccompanied children were previously allowed to self-isolate at a private residence under the supervision of a parent or guardian.
Parents can still apply for a special exemption, as did a Sydney parent whose nine-year-old child arrived in Australia this month from Europe.
NSW Health rejected the application. In a letter explaining the decision – seen by The Sydney Morning Herald – it said its “default position” was that unaccompanied minors must enter hotel quarantine because of the mutations making the virus more transmissible.
The children are being held in Special Health Accommodation, a type of hotel quarantine run by NSW Health staff instead of NSW Police.
At least one NSW patient in Special Health Accommodation was recently confirmed as having the UK mutant variant of COVID-19.
