17 August 2021
Dear colleagues,
The Chief Health Officer today announced two new COVID cases, one in hotel quarantine, and one associated with the Indooroopilly cluster who was already in home quarantine.
Border updates
New: From 1am tomorrow (Wednesday 18 August) the Greater Darwin and Katherine regions in the Northern Territory will be declared hotspots. Anyone entering Queensland from these places will need to go into mandatory hotel quarantine.
Currently, the Australian Capital Territory, all of New South Wales, and all of Victoria are hotspots. More information is available on the Queensland Health website.
Residential Aged Care Direction
From today the Residential Aged Care Direction (No. 5) has been published. The key points are:
- All residential aged care facility workers must have had a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by 16 September 2021 and the second dose by 31 October 2021 (or have evidence of a booking to receive the second dose).
- Health service employees working in residential aged care facilities must have received both doses by 31 October 2021.
- Residential aged care facility workers who are unable to be vaccinated, because they have a medical contraindication or because of a vaccine shortage, should be deployed to an alternative work location, wherever reasonably practicable.
- Residential aged care facility operators can only allow unvaccinated workers to continue to work at a facility in very limited situations.
- Residential aged care facility workers who have not been vaccinated can still enter a facility as a personal visitor or as a support person for a prospective resident, if they follow visitor requirements.
Ekka public holidays
The Ekka public holidays for Brisbane, Moreton Bay and Scenic Rim have been rescheduled for Friday 29 October.
PPE
Metro North remains on Tier 1 in our COVID response plan and moderate risk PPE, with fever clinic staff and emergency department triage staff wearing P2/N95 masks.
We have updated the PPE guidelines for healthcare delivery and for residential aged care and disability accommodation.
Helpful links
Please remember to get tested and isolate if experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms, including fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, fatigue, loss of smell and/ or taste, diarrhoea, vomiting or nausea.
Regards,
Louise O’Riordan
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 | Yesterday | TOTAL^ | |||||||
| MN TOTAL | 53 | 0 | 1 | 37 | 4 | 772 | 5 | 482 | 230,016 | |
*As at 17/08/2021 at 1000
**Metro North Health has four recorded deaths (one person a return traveller into NSW, who passed away in NSW)
*** These numbers reflect the cases being managed by Metro North Health.