"Stay put": Queensland CHO reveals key metric for lockdown lifting as 16 new cases recorded

"Stay put": Queensland CHO reveals key metric for lockdown lifting as 16 new cases recorded

St Aidans Anglican Girls' School is one of many new exposure sites relating to a fast-growing COVID-19 cluster in Brisbane. 

Update (1:57pm): Since this story was published more exposure sites have been listed by Queensland Health, including Brigidine College and a swim school in St Lucia.

Queensland has reported 16 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 overnight, with Chief Health Officer (CHO) Dr Jeannette Young encouraged by the fact all were linked to the Indooroopilly school cluster.

Two more schools have been added to the growing list of exposure sites as well - Holy Family School in Indooroopilly and St Aidans Anglican Girls' School in Corinda - and given the nature of the latest outbreak, nine of the new cases are young people.

The update lifts the total number of positive cases in the cluster to 47, after 34,718 Queenslanders came out to get tested yesterday - a figure that is still shy of the 40,000 daily testing goal set by the CHO.

There are now 7,995 people in quarantine in the state including more than 400 health workers, which is putting the health system under increased strain. 

Dr Young also confirmed all cardiac surgeons at the Queensland Children's Hospital (QCH) had to be in quarantine, so authorities have worked through how one of them will be able to operate on urgent cases as they arise.

"We do have a large proportion of of our critical health workers now in quarantine, so unfortunately we have had to delay some surgery and some outpatient work to manage that," she clarified.

When asked what it would take to lift the lockdown this coming Sunday, Dr Young gave an indication of what the state would need to achieve.

"I will want to have seen that any new cases that have been coming up have been in quarantine for their full infectious period," she said.

This cannot be said of the latest cases, some of whom have been infectious in the community for up to six days.

"It's too early in the outbreak to expect that all of these people will have been in quarantine," she added.

The CHO said 20 per cent of people infected with COVID-19 don't develop any symptoms but can still pass on the virus, which is why lockdowns work because they allow the virus to "burn out".

"We do need to continue testing throughout all of those 11 LGAs and throughout Queensland. It's really important so that we can just make sure that we don't have any other transmission events, any outbreaks happening," she said.

"Please don't move the virus. So wherever you are in the 11 LGAs, if you can at all just stay put so that that virus then doesn't move, because we know that there are people out there who could have been infected and have no symptoms.

"If you don't need to leave home, don't leave home."

She also clarified her recommendations for people who are not able to wear masks for medical reasons.

"If you cannot wear a mask because of a medical reason - and there are medical reasons for it - and you haven't been vaccinated, you are at really high risk, so stay home and the Care Army has been activated again and they will help if you can't organise food or essential goods," she said.

"Don't go out of your home if you can't wear a mask, I hope I'm being really clear.

"That is to protect yourself. Please don't find excuses to not wear a mask. I think masks have stopped the last 14 incursions of this virus into our state from spreading; it is just this 15th one that has led to spread. Masks are absolutely critical."

Dr Young said she was also pleased to see very little traffic on the roads this morning, which shows residents are listening to the authorities' recommendations about the clearest pathway out of lockdown.

Click here for the full list of updated exposure sites, which health authorities recommend you check regularly if you are in or have been in Queensland recently.

Updated at 10:47am AEST on 3 August 2021.

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