Dear colleagues,

It is great to see that we have continued to have zero community transmission over the last few days. Queensland recorded one new case of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing our State’s total of active cases to 27. The case was a close contact from the Ipswich hospital cluster and had already been in quarantine for 10 days.

Hydration breaks

For those staff who are still required to wear face masks at work, please remember to take hydration breaks throughout your shift. This is particularly important for those staff working outside in fever clinics now that the weather is warming up.

Public Health and Community and Oral health teams

I want to thank and acknowledge our Public Health Unit and Community and Oral Health teams for their tremendous work supporting people in hotel quarantine. Metro North is currently supporting over 2,500 people staying in 11 hotels in the Metro North catchment. These teams provide a wide range of support to those in hotel quarantine including telephone screening check-ups, COVID-19 testing, liaising with hotel staff to ensure health needs are met, mental health support, and advice and training for infection control. I am aware that staff from all Metro North Directorates have contributed to this work, so again thank you. Your contributions are noted and appreciated.

Dealing with fatigue

It is important that we all find ways to destress and unwind when we step away from our work lives to help reduce fatigue. Many teams will be experiencing fatigue as we are now in the eighth month of our COVID-19 response.  Please remember it is okay to ask for help. As Mark touched on yesterday, take the time now to recharge your batteries. Don’t wait till you are burnt out to take a break.

One of my favourite ways to recharge is by gardening. I snapped this photo this morning of my first hippeastrum booming, a herald to the spring and summer months. I enjoy watching the seasons come and go in my garden and it reminds me that this ‘season’ of COVID-19 we are currently in will also come to an end. Until then, we press on. Please take a few moments to consider what you are doing to destress and unwind, and take care of yourself.

Kind regards,

Michelle Stute

Metro North Incident Controller

Current MN Response Tier Activated – Tier Two minus

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 17 September 2020, 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.