12 March 2021

Dear Colleagues,

We are now into week three of Phase 1a COVID vaccinations. More than 5000 people have registered for vaccination through the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) hub and we anticipate by the end of this week we would have completed almost 3000 vaccinations.

But that’s not all – yesterday, we started priority staff vaccinations at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and today is Redcliffe Hospital’s turn. We anticipate by the end of this week we will have administered almost 300 vaccinations at these Directorates.

The rollout will expand to The Prince Charles Hospital, Caboolture Hospital and Community and Oral Health (Brighton) early next week.

The STARS vaccination service is prioritising border control and hotel quarantine workers, as well staff from laboratories, hospital ICUs, EDs and Infectious Disease wards.

To better enable these vaccination centres to operate smoothly, the fabulous Digital Metro North team are working with eHealth Queensland to enable online bookings.  Until this is operational, vaccination centres will continue to contact you directly to make appointments.

So many people have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure our vaccination effort has gotten off to a good start – I would particularly like to highlight this week the hard working pharmacy team who are managing cold chain, stock control and reporting and safe manufacture into syringes. Their work is amazing!

GPs getting ready

Our GPs colleagues are ramping up preparations to start Phase 1b community vaccinations.

The Brisbane North PHN is working closely to on-board staff and organise doses to be delivered to practices.

Our primary care partners including GPs and community pharmacists have a very important role if we are to reach the goal of providing a vaccination to everyone who wants one by the end of October.

More restrictions eased

Restrictions on private gatherings and camping will ease in Queensland from 1am tomorrow (Saturday 13 March).

Gatherings of up to 100 people will be allowed in homes and up to 500 people can gather outdoors.

The limit on people allowed at camp sites will also be removed. More great news just in time for Easter!

For us, it is timely for us to review the guidance about use of meeting spaces, tea rooms and lifts.

I commend to you to get the tape measure out, calculate the recommended maximum number of people in a space (one per 2m2 where practicable) and refresh the signage.

There’s a new “Check In Qld” app

This new app helps Queensland businesses meet their obligations to electronically collect customer information and will help make contact tracing faster and easier.

The app has many benefits – it is free, convenient, secure and saves time as it remembers your check in details, no matter where you are. Contact details will be securely stored by the Queensland Government and will only be accessed for contact tracing if required.

While the app is not mandatory, all hospitality businesses must continue to collect and store customer contact details electronically. The app can be downloaded from Google Play or the Apple App Store – just type “Check in QLD”.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Regards,

Dr Liz Rushbrook
Metro North Incident Controller

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	13	0	0	0	3	458	5	190	147,654

*With effect 12 March 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.