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Health authorities are sweating over the escalating COVID-19 outbreak in Queensland, with the three-day lockdown widely tipped to be extended.
Annastacia Palaszczuk will decide on Wednesday night if the strict directive will stay in place, but epidemiologists agree another jump in cases will leave the Premier with little option.
The Sunshine State reported eight locally acquired cases on Tuesday and another similar rise on Wednesday will likely be enough to keep the Queensland capital and surrounding region in lockdown beyond Thursday at 5pm.
“In terms of the Greater Brisbane region, we just have to take this day-by-day,” Ms Palaszczuk told reporters on Tuesday.
But the Premier said the case numbers reported on Wednesday were “critical for our contact tracers to get on top of this”.
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“The big question will be whether or not we see unlinked community transmission,” she said.
University of South Australia’s leading epidemiologist, professor Adrian Esterman, agreed the case numbers on Wednesday were “crucial” to containing the outbreak, warning the situation in Brisbane would “get worse before it gets better”.
“(Queensland Health) has to assume it’s out there … They have to do everything they can to make sure it doesn’t go any further,” he said, revealing seven new cases on Wednesday should be enough to extend the lockdown.
These views are echoed by other infectious disease experts, with Griffith University’s Nigel McMillan agreeing a similar jump to Tuesday would be enough for authorities to pull the trigger.
“My gut feeling is if we get similar numbers (Wednesday) as we have today, then we will go for another couple of days,” he told The Courier-Mail.
Ms Palaszczuk is due to hold a press conference on Wednesday morning to confirm the latest locally acquired cases, but at least one new case was revealed on Tuesday night – a nurse at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, plunging the facility into an emergency lockdown.
Staff were told in an email that if they had worked at the hospital campus from noon that day to not work at another Metro South Health facility until the lockdown was removed.
Those who worked in Ward 5D since March 18 are also being urged to get tested immediately.
“If you have been in ward 5D since 18 March, 2021, then you should be tested and receive a negative result before working in another facility,” the directive said.
The state’s chief health officer Jeannette Young said Queensland needed to be on guard and ready to extend the three-day lockdown of Greater Brisbane given infected cases had already spread to the Gold Coast, Gladstone and over the border to Byron Bay in NSW.
“It’s too early to decide what may or may not happen,” Dr Young said.
“We’ll just have to see how many cases we have and whether or not they’re linked and whether or not they’re in quarantine at the time that they’re diagnosed.”
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