State investigates hotel quarantine leak

The state recorded no new local cases on Tuesday, but further details emerged about a case reported on Monday, which chief health officer Jeannette Young said was identical to genome sequencing of another infection.The Gold Coast man travelled from China and became infected nearly two weeks after leaving quarantine and has “exactly the same sequence” as a traveller who entered quarantine from South Africa via Doha, taking the cluster to seven.Dr Young said authorities would now go through CCTV from the Amora Hotel where the two cases were located in rooms directly across from each other to check if there was a breach with both doors being opened at the same time.Under strict quarantine rules, Queensland Health has demanded security and staff not allow two doors to be opened in proximity given the highly infectious nature of the new strains, particularly the Delta variant.The man reported as an infection on Monday left quarantine on July 12 and developed symptoms on July 15 but did not get tested until he visited a GP on the Gold Coast for an unrelated matter on July 23.“That’s why we’ve contact traced back two days to the 13th of July and you’ll have seen all of those venues on our website,” Dr Young told reporters on Tuesday morning.“It’s really important that people check our website — if you’ve been anywhere in Brisbane or the Gold Coast since that 12th, 13th of July at any time, please make sure every 24 hours you check the website because we do get more sites as we talk to these cases. “That’s very, very important.”The Gold Coast man’s family have so far tested negative to Covid-19.Acting Premier Steven Miles said the lack of new cases was an “excellent result” given the “sheer number of risks” the state was monitoring, referring to the possible quarantine leak and last week’s revelations of a Qantas flight attendant who brought a Sydney man into the state despite him being a close contact of a NSW case.A full list of Queensland’s exposure sites can be found here.