Qld’s Covid success ‘for nothing’: expert

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and chief health officer Jeannette Young have both repeatedly declared a community cluster emerging in the state was a matter of when, not if, given the soaring case numbers in neighbouring NSW.But, as of Saturday, Queensland was trailing all other states and territories with just over 53 per cent of the eligible population having received their first vaccine dose.Infectious disease expert Paul Griffin has blamed the lag on Queenslanders being “falsely reassured” Covid will not breach the state.“The virus will come and we’re going to be underprepared,” he told 4BC on Monday morning.“It’s very likely that the southern states, who really got a move on with their vaccine rollouts, will be able to do things like travel overseas before we can let people into Queensland, even.“We will definitely get left behind and when it does come, which it will, all this good work will actually be for nothing.”The warning comes as a number of incidents threaten to progress into community spread with health authorities scrambling to test possible contacts of known infections in the state’s southeast.On Thursday, a 46-year-old truck driver from an area between Gold Coast and Brisbane emerged as a new local case who had been infectious in the community for a number of days.A four-year-old girl and her mother, both close contacts of the man, were revealed as new local cases on Friday night and Sunday respectively, sparking fears of community spread at a childcare centre and school.The Boulevard Early Learning Centre at Mount Warren Park and Windaroo State School have been assigned as close contact venues for all of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.Stylish Nails at the Beenleigh Marketplace (Monday, August 30, 10.30am – 11.45am) and Total Tools (Sunday August 29, 9.20am – 10am) in the same suburb were also added to the close contact alert list.Anyone who was at any of the venues is ordered to get tested, contact Queensland Health and isolate for 14 days regardless of the test result.Health authorities were also monitoring for spread from two low-risk cases who were in Queensland but are now interstate — a truck driver from NSW and a Qantas pilot from Kingaroy.Dr Young said on Sunday she was “very concerned” about community infection because her team were yet to track down all the contacts of the 46-year-old truck driver, and expressed particular anxiety for the Stylish Nails venue.