A coronavirus-infected woman who fled locked-down Melbourne with her husband and went on a 1,900km road trip may have crossed the NSW-Queensland border at a remote town to avoid detection.
Health authorities in Victoria, NSW and Queensland are scrambling to track down hundreds of people who may have been exposed to the virus during their interstate trip.
The woman, 44, tested positive on Wednesday but may have been infectious from the day she left Melbourne on June 1, which was already in lockdown.
Police believe the couple crossed the NSW-Queensland border at the remote rural town of Goondiwindi on June 5 in a bid to evade authorities.
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Pharmacies across NSW are working with the state government to determine which locations will be the first to start using chemists to administer the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 1200 earmarked by the federal government as suitable for the job.
Some of the state’s rural and remote pharmacies could be the first to start administering the AstraZeneca vaccine, says David Heffernan, the NSW branch president of the Pharmacy Guild.
In February, thousands of pharmacies applied to be part of the vaccine rollout. More than 3900 community pharmacies across the country were deemed suitable, and since then staff have undergone training to prepare for the rollout.
The Queensland lockdown will begin at 11.59pm on Thursday after the state recorded 11 new cases linked to the City of Whittlesea outbreak overnight taking the total cases to 26.