Queensland’s latest virus outbreak – which has resulted in 15 local cases, so far, and a snap lockdown that looks set to extend into Easter – has highlighted big flaws in the state’s policies for treating COVID-19 patients.
How the hell did Queensland Health let doctors and nurses who hadn’t been vaccinated against coronavirus treat active COVID-19 patients?
Although Queensland’s rollout of the coronavirus vaccine had been slow compared with NSW and Victoria, there were still 1000 doctors and nurses who had been vaccinated when the original outbreak happened.
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Queensland Health officials brushed aside suggestions of a mandatory protocol earlier this month, saying patient care came first, while Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said a mandate would have halved the workforce.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Tuesday that Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young would enforce a mandate from tomorrow, but that now appears far too little, too late.
Medical specialists are aghast that non-vaccinated health workers were allowed to treat COVID-19 patients who had been moved into hospital after testing positive in hotel quarantine.
The fact a nurse who treated COVID-19 patients was able to travel interstate to Byron Bay with her sister for a hen’s party was also beyond the pale for some medical specialists.
“Front line workers not vaccinated and COVID contact workers allowed to cruise around the community without precautions. Unbelievable,” said one specialist, who did not want to be identified.
Lockdown looks set to be extended
The health minister said 83 per cent of front-line health workers were being vaccinated and the rest should be completed by the end of the week. But right now the coronavirus genie is out of the bottle and there goes Easter.
Only a day after the end of the Morrison government’s $90 billion JobKeeper scheme, which had kept tourism operators afloat since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the Brisbane lockdown looks set to ruin what was shaping as a bumper Easter school holiday period.
Palaszczuk and Young, who may as well be deputy premier in Queensland given the power and influence she yields, will hope the lockdown will provide the “circuit-breaker” they need to get on top of the seven local COVID-19 cases.
But for some tourism operators the damage has already been done.
State and territory governments across the country snapped into action on Monday, imposing tough restrictions for returning travellers from Queensland.
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If you were a family from Melbourne planning to go to a Noosa holiday for Easter, but you had to do 14-day quarantine upon your return to Victoria, why would you bother going?
Only a few hours after Palaszczuk announced the snap lockdown, the cancellations started rolling in.
Tourism operators were hoping the Easter period would make up for the end of the JobKeeper payments as well the January lockdown which stuffed up the summer holidays.
But it’s quickly turning into a nightmare for the tourism sector that was the first to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic and looks set to be the last to come out of it.
The latest outbreak has stemmed from two clusters of health workers (a doctor and a nurse) being infected while treating COVID-19 patients at the PA Hospital in South Brisbane.
A nurse tested positive in early March and Queensland Health officials were confident the outbreak of the more infectious UK strain of COVID-19 had been nipped in the bud.
But eight new local cases of coronavirus on Tuesday are not a good sign and the Brisbane lockdown looks set to be extended across the Easter weekend.
In the 1957 Dr Seuss story it might have been the Grinch who stole Christmas, but now Palaszczuk may be the premier who ruined Easter.
