Dear Colleagues, 

 

Over the past 24 hours, our fever clinics have seen nearly ten times as many presentations as they had been averaging in recent weeks.   

 

To support this increased demand from testing (secondary to the NSW Avalon Cluster), our Fever Clinics have stepped up in capacity and opening hours.  We are also working with private pathology providers to help share that load, and to ensure that we pro-actively manage the average waiting times for patients.  

 

Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard and so well for our patients and community today and for the coming days. 

 

Friends and family from NSW  

 

At this time of year, many of us have friends and family staying with us.   If you have houseguests from NSW this week, please make sure they are aware of their quarantine and testing obligations – please encourage and support them to get tested and help them observe their 14-day quarantine requirement.     

 

If someone in your household is awaiting a COVID test result or is in 14-day quarantine, they need to be isolated from other members of the household as much as possible.  Here are some tips for home quarantine.  Provided this can be done, other members of the household do not need to be isolated.   

 

If anyone in your household has any symptoms, they must be tested immediately.  

 

Border Restriction Direction and Declared Hotspots Direction Changes 

 

You would be aware that the border restrictions and declared hotspots are changing regularly. Both were last updated on Sunday morning limiting those who can enter Queensland, and requiring those who do enter to quarantine, generally in a nominated premises.  There remains a requirement for those that entered Queensland and have been in relevant NSW hotspots since 11 December to be tested and home quarantine for 14 days. 

 

Hotel Quarantine (nominated premises) 

 

We continue to work with our colleagues to strengthen support to hotel quarantine.  This means an increased (24/7) health presence at all of the hotels, and sees increased numbers of aircrew stay at hotel quarantine, rather than alternate arrangements.  This is supported by a hotel quarantine worker screening program and a wide range of specialist health and infection control services. 

 

I would like to thank this specialist team of workers that is keeping Queenslanders safe. 

 

Kind regards, 

Dr Liz Rushbrook

Metro North Incident Controller

Current MN Response Tier Activated – Tier 0

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	9	0	0	0	3	389	5	1327	116,833

*With effect 21 December 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.