08 Jan 2021

Dear colleagues

Please read the below carefully.

This morning, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has ordered new restrictions in Brisbane as a result of the ongoing urgent contact tracing operation regarding a confirmed hotel quarantine worker who tested positive to the UK strain of COVID-19.

Three-day lockdown

Greater Brisbane will enter a three-day lockdown as of 6pm tonight, Friday 8 January. This includes Brisbane City Council, Moreton Bay Regional Council, Ipswich City Council, Logan City Council and Redland City Council.

It is also advised that people who have visited the Greater Brisbane area since January 2, but are now elsewhere, should stay where they are for the next 3 days and isolate.

Restrictions

From 6pm tonight until 6pm Monday 11 January, you will only be able to leave home for the following reasons:

Shopping for essentials, food and necessary supplies in your local area.
Medical or healthcare needs, including compassionate requirements.
Exercise with no more than one other person, unless all from the same household.
Providing care or assistance to an immediate family member.
Work, or volunteering, or study if it is not reasonably practicable to work or learn remotely.
Child custody arrangements.
Legal obligations.
Visit for end of life.
Attend funeral or wedding in line with restrictions.

Further restrictions include:

No more than two visitors to the household per day (in addition to anyone else currently staying in the household), excluding care workers or volunteers.
Mandatory mask wearing anywhere outside of your home (those 12 years old and under are exempt).
No visitors to aged care facilities, hospitals, disability accommodation services or correctional facilities.

This means that if you had travel or social plans for the weekend, these need to be cancelled or delayed.

Even though these restrictions will take place from tonight, as a health service we should be modelling exemplary behaviour, so I am asking for everyone to please wear a mask as soon as one becomes available to you.

These restrictions may seem tough, but they’re in place to minimise the risk of community spread. Evidence has shown that this variant is 70 per cent more infectious than other strains, which is why action on this has been firm and swift.

Essential employees and work as usual

Whether you are clinical or not, everyone working at Metro North is an essential worker and we all play a role in delivering or supporting the delivery of healthcare to the community. This means we all must come to work as usual. Masks will be made available to you and you must wear them while at work. More information on masks will be available soon.

Contact tracing list for positive case

Again, here is the list of where the positive case has been. If you were in these areas at or near these times and haven’t yet been tested, please get tested immediately.

Saturday 2 January – 7am – Train from Altandi station to Roma street
Saturday 2 January – 4pm – Train from Central Station to Altandi station
Sunday 3 January – 11am -12pm – Woolworths, Calamvale North
Tuesday 5 January – 7.30am – 8am – Coles, Sunnybank Hills
Tuesday 5 January – 8am – 8.15am – Nextra Newsagent Sunnybank Hills Shopping Town

Where to get tested

The message from Queensland Health is clear, get tested. If you’ve been in the above locations or are displaying any symptoms, get tested and isolate straight away. To access a full list of COVID-19 testing locations, with interactive map and postcode search, visit: https://www.qld.gov.au/covid19testing.

Our health service

Metro North is now in Tier 1 of our COVID-19 response plan

Tier 1 advice includes:

Visitors: No visitors are allowed to enter any of our facilities.
- - The following exceptions are in place:
    - Patients under the age of 18;
    - Patients with a disability and the person visiting is the carer of the patient;
    - Patients in labour/pregnancy care;
    - End-of-life support
Any exceptions are require approval by the Directorate Executive Director
Concierge: Please resume the concierge services as soon as possible. This will ensure that we can manage these changes efficiently and effectively
Students: No students are permitted to enter Metro North facilities effective immediately until Tuesday (pending further information).
Interns: At this stage the interns due to start across Metro North are allowed to do so.
Meetings:Virtual meetings are strongly encouraged.
Masks: As mentioned above, masks must be worn effective immediately by all staff in all work areas.
- These masks must be Queensland Health supplied, staff that arrive in their own masks may change their mask on arrival to a Metro North facility
- You must wear a mask when you leave your home. This includes on the way to work. The only exception is if you have no mask at home and are in your car alone transiting to work (where you will be provided a mask on arrival).
Extended Fever Clinic hours of operation: Due to the demand, the majority of Metro North Fever Clinics will be extending their hours of operation today and/or tomorrow. Queensland Health is in the process of updating its central COVID-19 website regarding fever clinic hours and locations.

Thank you everyone for your cooperation. You’ve all acted quickly to the news and have shown great diligence and teamwork this morning. While this has been declared a three-day lockdown, we need to remain realistic and ready for anything that may happen over the weekend that could change or prolong this.

Take care over the weekend.

Regards

Shaun Drummond
Chief Executive

Current MN Response Tier Activated – Tier 1

Metro North HHS – overview of Cases*

HHS	Patients being managed by HHS						FEVER Clinics
	Total In-patients			Virtual Ward / HITH / or similar	Deaths **	Total cases managed by HHS (including recovered) *******	# of clinics	Presentations
		ICU Pts
		ICU-NOT Ventilated	ICU-Ventilated					Last 24 hrs	TOTAL^
MN TOTAL	8	0	0	0	3	405	5	504	126,845

*With effect 08 January 2021, 1000
**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.

Download a PDF version