29 March 2021

Dear colleagues,

This morning Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced that Greater Brisbane is now declared a hotspot and will go into a three-day lockdown commencing at 5pm tonight, 29 March 2021.

In the last 24 hours Queensland has recorded ten new cases of COVID-19. Six of these were acquired overseas and four cases are community transmission. Of these four, two are connected to the current northern suburbs COVID-19 cluster. The other two cases are under investigation, but it is believed that one of them is a nurse from the PA hospital.

Metro North remains on a Tier 1 response, with visitor and volunteer restrictions and PPE requirements remaining in place. Please note that all Metro North staff, including students, are considered essential workers and are to remain on site with mask wearing and social distancing in place. Flexible working arrangements have not been activated, except for staff who are awaiting COVID-19 test results.

As you can appreciate this is a rapidly evolving situation, and we will continue to update you as we receive updates from the State Health Emergency Coordination Centre.

Lockdown

From 5pm today, residents in the local government areas of Brisbane, Ipswich, Moreton Bay, Logan and Redlands can only leave home for one of these four reasons:

1. to buy essentials such as groceries & medications
2. essential work
3. exercise in your local area
4. healthcare to provide help, care or support to vulnerable people.

Residents of these areas must also wear masks indoors except at home, including ride shares, on public transport and in workplaces.

State schools in the locked down areas will remain open for children of essential workers.

A full list of restrictions is available here.

Vaccinations 

Our COVID-19 vaccination program will continue throughout the lockdown, with appointments continuing as scheduled. All staff will still be required to wear masks and goggles, with vaccines required to wear masks and physically distance where possible.

Anyone working in a healthcare setting is part of phase 1b for vaccinations. This includes volunteers, contractors and independent patient rights advisers. We are also opening up our vaccination program to include our on-campus partners.

Moving forward

To ensure the safety of our staff and patients, staff working in COVID wards will receive daily saliva testing from today. FIT testing is also being fast tracked for staff working in COVID wards at RBWH and TPCH.

We are also monitoring staff that are close contacts of identified cases. Please keep regularly checking the list of exposure sites and locations on the contact tracing alerts website and advise your line manager if you are required to isolate.

The COVID-19 HR Hotline will be stood up from tomorrow to assist staff with HR related concerns. Staff can call the hotline number on 3647 2819 or visit the COVID-19 HR information website.

Thank you all for your support and hard work as we step up to support our patients and the community through this latest outbreak.

Regards,

Mark Butterworth

Metro North Incident Controller

Metro North HHS – overview of cases*

*With effect 29 March 2021, 1100
**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.