Qld Health pounces on Melbourne visitors

Extra tracers were brought in to help contact the cohort as soon as possible, and Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick said they had done an excellent job in locating all of those involved in the current situation.

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“Queensland Health was very quick out of the blocks,” Mr Dick said. “Within 24 hours, they had messaged everybody who had contact with those exposure sites in Victoria.

“Now we’re working through individual cases, but we’re sending a very clear message – please isolate until you’ve had a test and you get the result.”

Meanwhile, three people were turned around at Gold Coast Airport after they were found to have arrived from the Greater Melbourne area.

Police have confirmed the three passengers were among approximately 3500 screened at the Coolangatta airport on Saturday.

Officers could not confirm whether the trio arrived on the same plane or were known to each other, however all three were put on flights back to Victoria.

Queensland bans nebulisers in quarantine

People in hotel quarantine in Queensland will no longer be able to use a nebuliser to treat asthma or other lung conditions following the outbreak in Melbourne.

The Victorian government claimed the man at the centre of the outbreak used a nebuliser that he hadn’t declared, however the man has since told journalists he did tell authorities about the device.

Nebulisers create a fine mist of a drug to be inhaled by the patient, but this is considered to be extremely risky for coronavirus transmission.

In a statement on Sunday, Queensland Health confirmed the devices had not previously been banned in Queensland’s quarantine system but that now they were.

“Following the situation in Victoria, we have updated our guidelines. The use of nebulisers is now prohibited in Queensland quarantine hotels except in an emergency,” the statement said.

“People who may require ongoing use of a nebuliser are assessed by a respiratory physician and may require being transferred to hospital for care.”

Full coronavirus recovery “years away”

Mr Dick warned on Sunday that Queensland’s full economic recovery from the pandemic was years away, but he insisted that the short-term outlook was still strong.

The Treasurer was speaking in Milton at Newstead Brewing Co as it prepared to ship its first export order, with nine different brews, to Hong Kong.

Many imports and exports to and from Australia have been disrupted over the course of the pandemic, which Mr Dick said made it all the more gratifying that a Brisbane brewery was sending products overseas for the first time.

However he stressed that the economic road out of the current situation was going to be a long one.

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” he said. “It’s going to take us years to recover from the economic impact of COVID-19, but we’re headed in the right direction.”