December 18, 2020
Anyone who flew into Brisbane on Wednesday on Virgin flight VA-925 – or who visited the Glen Hotel at Eight Mile Plains the same day – has been urged to be alert for COVID-19 symptoms.
The warning from Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young comes after a woman aged in her 50s, who travelled from Sydney to Brisbane on December 16, tested positive for the virus.
The woman flew into Brisbane at 9:30am and went to the Glen Hotel at 11:30am before using a hire car to travel to the Sunshine Coast.
Dr Young said the woman – who is connected to Sydney’s Northern Beaches cluster – only had contact with a hotel receptionist on the Sunshine Coast.
After being alerted by a friend about the Sydney cluster, the woman dropped in to Prince Charles Hospital to be tested before driving back to Sydney.
She received her positive result after she returned to NSW.
Dr Young said authorities were now contacting anyone who was deemed to be at high risk.
She said the two main areas of concern were the Virgin flight and the Eight Mile Plains hotel as there was more potential for exposure.
“The specific risk (on the Virgin flight) – two rows in front, behind and beside – we will be in contact with those people,” Dr Young said.
Anyone who attended The Glen Hotel after 11:30am on Wednesday should also get tested.
“We are contact tracing people who did attend lunch – they’re who we’re most concerned about,” Dr Young said.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Queensland currently has three new cases of COVID-19. Two of these were in hotel quarantine and the Sydney woman was the third.
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The Northern Beaches local government area in Sydney is now a declared COVID-19 hotspot for Queensland.
At 10:00pm on Thursday, Queensland Health released a statement:
- Anyone who was in the Northern Beaches region on or since Friday, December 11, and is already in Queensland should get tested and quarantine in their home or accommodation for 14 days from the date they left the Northern Beaches.
- Anyone who was in the Northern Beaches region on or since Friday, December 11, and arrives in Queensland on a flight from Sydney after midnight Thursday (December 17) must get tested and quarantine in their home or accommodation for 14 days from the date they left the Northern Beaches.
- Anyone who was in the Northern Beaches region on or since Friday, December 11, and arrives in Queensland on a flight from Sydney after 1:00am on Saturday (December 19) must go into hotel quarantine at their own expense for 14 days from the date they left the Northern Beaches, and get tested.
This includes both interstate visitors and Queensland residents returning home.
- Related article: Warning To Would-Be Travellers
[UPDATED. Originally published as “Health Officer Issues COVID-19 Warning”]
