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Coast concerns: Truckie infectious for five days; family boasts of illegal Melbourne visit

The Gold Coast is on edge after a truckie who travelled from Sydney tested positive, and a secret Melbourne trip put five people in quarantine and under investigation.

Sep 02, 2021, updated Sep 02, 2021
Gold Coast residents are on high alert over two unauthorised border crossings. (Photo: AAP Image/Albert Perez)

Gold Coast residents are on high alert over two unauthorised border crossings. (Photo: AAP Image/Albert Perez)

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told parliament today an apparent community-acquired case was under investigation. She said the truck driver concerned had travelled to Sydney and back, and may have been infectious in the community between August 28 and September 1.

“News from interstate is increasingly grim,” Palaszczuk said.

“For five days this week, New South Wales has reported more than a thousand new cases a day.”

Alarm was raised on Wednesday over another truck driver, who was in Queensland for a day while infectious, prompting contact-tracing over exposure sites at Archerfield, Bundamba and Goondiwindi. The man is from NSW and has returned to NSW, so is technically not a Queensland case.

But the situation on the Gold Coast, where there is tension over tough border controls, is potentially worse than it appears after schoolyard gossip alerting authorities to a breach and possible COVID-19 outbreak.

Palaszczuk told parliament a Gold Coast school had been locked down after students “boasted” of a recent unsanctioned trip to the hotspot of Melbourne.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said it was believed a family of five travelled to Melbourne, and back home via an inland route. Their children attended the Australian International Islamic College at Carrara for one day before word got out.

The family has since been ordered into isolation – some are in hotel quarantine – and other students asked to stay home.

D’Ath said that because some of the family members were unwell, Queensland Health was “treating it as if it is” COVID-19 and trying to identify exposure sites and potential contacts.

“Unfortunately, this family is refusing to be tested and so far not cooperating with authorities,” D’Ath said.

Not only that, but the truck driver who had tested positive – a 46-year-old Windaroo man – was back in NSW again and Queensland Health was “seeking to locate this man”.

Wastewater testing during the week in concern did not pick up any viral fragments at sampling sites at the northern end of the Gold Coast and Logan. Further results are due in the coming days.

Queensland was thought to have gone two weeks without someone being infectious in the community, during which time the NSW outbreak deteriorated, dragging down Victoria and the ACT.

Treasurer Cameron Dick called on the Morrison Government to “back off” in its criticism of Queensland, claiming senior members were pushing for the border to be reopened and “demanding we expose vulnerable Queenslanders to the uncontrolled outbreak of NSW”.

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Opposition leader David Crisafulli used question time to ask Palaszczuk about her “policy shift” in requiring children to be vaccinated, in contravention on the national plan. He challenged the Premier to detail her alternative plan.

Palaszczuk said the question was “deliberately misleading” as Queensland was following all aspects of the national plan in its current phases and she had outlined her concerns for children at National Cabinet.

She repeatedly pointed to case numbers and lockdowns in southern states, and challenged Liberal National Party members to ask their constituents if they wanted Queensland to follow suit.

“Are you on Queensland’s side, or are you on the other side?”

Palaszczuk said adolescents would be vaccinated, and she wanted to know what would happen for children under 12 if Australia relaxed its lockdowns and restrictions in the coming months.

Asked about a three-year-old boy who was stuck in NSW with his grandparents, and reportedly denied an exemption to return to his parents in Queensland, Palaszczuk indicated no final decision had been made, saying the exemptions unit was “processing and talking to them about that exemption”.

Crisafulli said Queenslanders were looking for “hope over fear, confidence over chaos, a pathway out of the pandemic”.

“They want to know that at the end of their sacrifice lies opportunities for them, for their families,” he said, pointing to “mixed messaging” over the risks and who qualifies for special treatment.

Labor backbencher Don Brown told parliament that, even based on the modelling by the Doherty Institute that underpins the national plan, “here are unvaccinated children who are going to die in the first six months”.

The government continues to encourage Queenslanders to get vaccinated, and Palaszczuk announced a new mass vaccination hub would open in Cairns, as outreach teams continue to service First Nations communities.

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