Dear colleagues,

As at 1am today, updates to the Aged Care Direction (No. 17) and Hospital Visitors Direction (No. 11) and Disability Accommodation Services Direction (No. 8) came into effect.

This means the following changes for our facilities:

• Visitors to aged care facilities and disability accommodation services who have been in Victoria on or after 21 December 2020 are not allowed to enter unless 14 days have passed since the person was in Victoria.
• Visitors to Queensland hospitals who have been in Victoria on or after 21 December 2020 are not allowed to enter unless 14 days have passed since the person was in Victoria OR the person has obtained a negative COVID-19 test in Queensland.
• Employees, contractors, students, volunteers and support persons who have been in Victoria on or after 21 December 2020 may enter a residential aged care facility or disability accommodation service if the individual obtains a negative COVID-19 test in Queensland after returning from Victoria.

Any Metro North staff who have been in Victoria on or since 21 December are reminded to get tested promptly. You need to isolate until your test result is known.  If you are operationally required to work today or tomorrow, your supervisor can provide certification that you are needed for duty and we can arrange rapid testing.  As a general guide:

• Staff who are at work today should be promptly identified, isolated and undergo rapid testing immediately to avoid any risk of workplace-based spread.
• Staff who need to work tomorrow or this week should contact their supervisor to discuss if they need to be urgently tested or tested as normal (the current turnaround time remains at around 24 hours).
• Staff who have been in Victoria on or since 21 December and who have not yet been at work and can delay return to work, should get tested through the normal process at any available testing site before returning to work.

Extended Fever Clinic hours

We will be extending hours of operation across our Fever Clinics to meet public demand daily.  A reminder to check in here for local clinic hours of operation.

A big thank you

Thank you again to our incredible workforce who ran our fever clinics following the Chief Health Officer’s recent directive regarding people returning from Victoria. While many of us enjoyed our final days of holidays, others were busy facilitating testing and looking after those waiting to be tested. We are so grateful for these staff who help to keep all Queenslanders safe.

Dr Liz Rushbrook

Metro North Incident Controller

Current MN Response Tier Activated – Tier 0

Metro North HHS – overview of Cases*

*With effect 04 January 2021, 1100
**Metro North has three recorded deaths (one person a return traveller into NSW, who passed away in NSW)
*** These numbers reflect the cases being managed by Metro North.