Health authorities in Queensland are grappling with seven different COVID-19 outbreaks, including three mystery cases which have sent contact tracers racing to find out how the virus was spread.
The locally acquired cases are a mother and daughter from Carindale in Brisbane who tested positive on Friday and a Sunshine Coast man in his 50s, who was confirmed to have the virus hours later.
They were not known contacts of existing cases.
The women had been out and about "extensively", triggering an extended lockdown for the Brisbane City Council and the Moreton Bay regions until 6:00pm Saturday to give health authorities time to find the missing link.
The mother works for the community respite team at the Greek Orthodox Community Centre in Browning Street, South Brisbane, which underwent a deep clean yesterday.
Authorities said the man, who works at the Sippy Downs campus of the University of the Sunshine Coast, was at work the two days before lockdown began on Tuesday evening but had "minimal contact with others".
The detection of the case did not stop lockdown being lifted for Sunshine Coast residents last night.
Authorities are now dealing with outbreaks on seven different fronts, including cases linked to:
- The Prince Charles Hospital casual receptionist (Delta strain)
- FIFO workers from The Granites gold mine in the Northern Territory (Delta strain)
- A Qatar Airways check-in counter employee (Delta strain)
- A Virgin flight crew member (Delta strain)
- The Portuguese Family Centre restaurant (Alpha strain)
- The mum and daughter from Carindale (Unknown strain)
- The man from Aroona on the Sunshine Coast (Unknown strain)
AAP: Darren England
)The state's Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said on Friday morning it was unlikely there were more undetected cases in the community.
"I don't think it's likely. The testing rate is fantastic; we did 26,993 tests which is just amazing," she said.
"With that amount of testing, I can be reasonably comfortable that we're unlikely to have a significant chain of transmission going on."
Dr Young said the high testing numbers also made her confident there was no unknown spread of the virus in the Townsville region.
Townsville city, Palm Island and Magnetic Island were plunged into lockdown, along with 11 local government areas in south-east Queensland, after an unvaccinated hospital worker with the Delta strain travelled to north Queensland.
"Those people only just came through for a short time in Townsville and then went to Magnetic Island and they've managed to not go out broadly," Dr Young said.
"They've been on holidays there, so they've remained there.
"The amount of testing that has been done up there has been absolutely fantastic, so that's why I'm pretty confident."
Dr Young said it was still too early to tell if the lockdown measures for Brisbane and Moreton Bay would lift on Saturday until the latest case numbers were available this morning.
Testing is best defence against community spread
Griffith University virologist and research leader Lara Herrero said there was always a possibility of undetected cases in the community.
Supplied: Griffith University
)"There's always that possibility [and] it's maybe slightly greater now that we have got detected cases," Dr Herrero said.
"There is still a best attempt at hotel quarantine but leaks do happen and we should always be aware that community transmission that's undetected may still be going on."
Dr Herrero said getting tested and practising social distancing was the best defence against unknown community spread.
"I think that we have become a little complacent with that; certainly now it's winter.
"On top of that, I think we have become complacent with our social distancing and our hand hygiene.
"We need to go back go that and remember that it is critical in stopping the transmission.
"And don't underestimate that there might be something out there."
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2021-07-02 20:22:38Z
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