Reports have revealed a Kingaroy pilot returned a positive covid-19 test while he was away with work in Melbourne.
However, Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said during Sunday’s press conference that she was not too concerned about possible infectious spreads in Queensland.
The man, who works as a Qantas pilot, lives on ‘quite an isolated cattle property’ out towards Kingaroy.
“At this stage I’m really comfortable as he really did stay at home during his infectious period and his wife and children are negative [tests],” Dr Young said.
“He was fully vaccinated as was his wife, which is a good thing.”
The pilot travelled from his property to Brisbane, where he visited his mother -whose test results are not back yet.
Dr Young said the man then went to the Brisbane airport, flew to Hong Kong, and then flew to Melbourne. While he was in Victoria he got tested, which came back positive for covid-19.
The Chief Health Officer said health authorities were currently trying to work out when the man had caught the infection, and where he had been while he was infectious.
“We’re waiting on the genome sequence results from Victoria as to whether he acquired that in Queensland,” she said.
The man also works part-time as a freight driver and had been in Tamworth on 20 August.
“We are trying to work out if he acquired it in Tamworth or New South Wales or in Hong Kong as that will change the risk profile,” Dr Young said.
During the press conference, Dr Young announced there was one new locally acquired case in Queensland, bringing the total number of active cases in the state to 16.
This was the mother of a four-year-old girl who had already tested positive and has been in quarantine in the Logan area.
A second person who had recently tested positive interstate is a truck driver from NSW.
Dr Young said the truck driver had come up through NSW to Queensland through Archerfield and Cooper’s Plains, before returning to NSW. He spent time at the Archerfield BP, and otherwise had minimal exposure in Queensland.
Queensland Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk said 52.7 per cent of Queenslanders had already had one dose, and 34.14 per cent are fully vaccinated.
“Now is our window of opportunity Queensland to get vaccinated… this is our window to get this done,” she said.
“Every single person who gets vaccinated is protecting us from having a huge outbreak like what we’re seeing in NSW.”
Dr Young echoed Ms Palaszczuk’s encouragement for Queenslanders to get their covid-19 vaccinations.
“We know that the people who have had two doses of the vaccine are very unlikely to get severe illness and end up dying, they still can which is why we do have to have social distancing and mask wearing while we have the risk of the virus in our community,” Dr Young said.
