Young has revealed that although her focus during the pandemic has been on public health and safety, she has been mindful of the need to avoid any unnecessary economic disruption.

In an interview with InQueensland, Young acknowledged the need for her to deliver clear and concise public messaging on COVID-19.

“But I also have in the back of my mind that the economy is more important to health outcomes than health is,” Young said.

“If people don’t have jobs and income, then their health outcomes are appalling. Jobs and income are probably the biggest social determinants of health.

“My view is if I can get the health side all sorted then we can go and sort out the economy and that’s what we’ve done.”

Young said she had conducted careful analysis of the potential risks in three major industries and employers, namely construction, mining and agriculture, and provided advice on how they could continue through the pandemic. This included managing a fly-in, fly-out workforce and being able to swiftly identify and isolate potential cases.

She made the comments before it emerged a fruit picker had travelled from Melbourne to Brisbane and then to Bundaberg, where he worked and lived with other strawberry pickers, before being diagnosed with COVID-19 on Friday.

The Victorian man, 24, was in isolation under clinical supervision in Bundaberg while hundreds of potential contacts have been tested for COVID-19. As of Monday morning, all tests had been negative, with no new cases in Queensland and the state’s tally remaining at 1062.

Young told reporters on Sunday “the response from the farming business, the patient’s contacts and the Wide Bay community has been excellent”.

In the interview last week, Young described how she had considered her role and what difference she could make to industries where it was safe to continue.

“Yes, I’m (about) health advice, and I’m fairly blinkered and that’s what I do, but I can use that health advice to manage things,” she told InQueensland.

“So I did think through very carefully what were the industries that I could, with my health advice, help manage.”

While tourism and hospitality would inevitably be impacted, due to crowding and the discretionary nature of such activities, Young has helped other industries continue and is now working with affected sectors to help them work under COVID-19 plans.

“There’s a couple of industries I desperately wanted to keep going and I felt I had a real ability to do it,” Young said.

“One was construction: I’ve got a couple of the union people from the construction industry who ring me up regularly to ask advice and to keep things going, and they’ve kept going in Queensland, because I can’t see (a significant) risk in construction.

“Then mining: all these people wanted to stop fly-in, fly-out workers, whereas my thing is ‘manage it, it’s a risk, just manage it’. And they’ve kept going.

“Then the third one was agriculture.”

Young confirmed a Queensland Health staff member’s account of workers on a nearby building site offering their support as she walked by.

“They always say hello,” Young said, “it’s lovely”.