The case is “likely historic” which was “really good news”, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said in a press conference.The positive case was a woman in hotel quarantine at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Brisbane.She tested positive for COVID-19 while during “day 12” and was sent to hospital. “We want to rule out that there has been any transmission at all in the hotel,” deputy chief health officer Sonya Bennett said.“It’s one of a number of possible options to explain the case identified yesterday.” The hotel would go into lockdown for 72 hours, Ms Bennett said.“(It will) not accept any more residents, not discharging any return travellers for the next 72 hours until we understand better the context of that event,” she said. Ms Bennett said she wanted to make clear it was not linked to a previous cluster at the same hotel. The Premier said there were 36 active cases in the state. More than 5000 Queenslanders were tested in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, contact tracing is complete for a doctor who tested positive for COVID-19 who worked at the Princess Alexandria Hospital at Woolloongabba on Brisbane’s southside, Ms Palaszczuk said. She said 238 community contacts had been identified and testing was underway. At the Princess Alexandria Hospital 61 staff and seven patients have been tested because of their link to the doctor. Three close contacts had returned negative tests. “Contact tracers are going through where the doctor went in the hospital, they are identifying those people, and we should have more results of their tests tomorrow,” she said. It was revealed on Sunday the doctor was not attached to a particular ward in the hospital but moved throughout responding to wherever she was needed. She had worked with a COVID-positive patient and genomic testing was underway to see if that patient and the doctor’s infections could be linked with certainty, Ms Bennett said.She said there was a “partial” link between the COVID-positive healthcare worker and one of the cases she assessed. “Genomic sequencing hasn’t quite confirmed the link,” she said. “There wasn’t enough virus. “What the laboratory was able to do was what we call partially sequence, which indicates there is a link between the healthcare worker and one of the patients she assessed.”A case announced on Saturday could also be linked to the original case, she said. The Princess Alexandria Hospital was put into lockdown on Friday after it was discovered the doctor was COVID-positive.
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