Health by Janelle Miles
Premium Content John Gerrard admits he d often wondered whether the big global pandemic he d spent decades planning and training for as an infectious disease physician was nothing more than fanciful science fiction. But that changed exactly a year ago today, when a sick tourist from the Chinese city of Wuhan was diagnosed on the Gold Coast with a mystery coronavirus that had started sweeping the world. The 44-year-old man, part of a travelling group of nine from Wuhan, was Queensland s patient zero, the first confirmed case in the state of a virus that 12 months on, has killed more than 2.1 million people globally - and counting.
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said Queensland officers were alerted on Friday night that a woman had flown into the state after testing positive to the mutant UK strain. The woman arrived in Victoria from the UK on December 26 and tested positive to the virus on December 27. She isolated for 10 days, cleared all her symptoms and then was allowed to fly to Queensland on January 5 on Jetstar flight JQ570 which arrived in Brisbane at 11pm. She has since gone to Maleny in the Sunshine Coast where she tested positive again on Friday. Premier Palaszczuk urged Queenslanders with any symptoms whatsoever to go and get tested.
People who lined up for as long as two hours at the Royal Brisbane and Women s Hospital on Saturday night were left furious after being turned away when the COVID-19 testing facility shut at 9pm. The returned Queenslanders and interstate travellers who came out to do the right thing were left disappointed after they were advised by Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young to get tested immediately and isolate if they had been in Melbourne since December 21. As the only testing facility open last night, the RBWH was swamped in the hours following the announcement. The massive line was a mixture of returned Queenslanders and travellers from interstate on Saturday. Picture: David Clark