February 3, 2020
The COVID pandemic has led to another burst of major event postponements or cancellations.
The annual Cooyar Show, which was originally planned for February 19, has now been postponed until May 28.
Cooyar Show secretary Brianna Barron said the Show Society had made the decision because it felt current public health mandates would make it too difficult to run the event.
However, the Show Society hopes conditions will improve by May once the current Omicron wave washes over Queensland.
Murgon Show Society have also postponed their annual show, originally planned for March 11-12.
Murgon Show Society president Alan Trim said the postponement had been forced on the Show Society by electrical problems at Murgon Showgrounds, and made worse by the current shortage of tradespeople. However, he was hopeful a new date could be announced once the problems were remedied.
In Kingaroy, the annual Wine & Food In The Park Festival has also been cancelled again this year due to COVID concerns.
The festival had been planned to be held on March 12.
Ironpot’s annual Reef & Beef Extravaganza has also been cancelled.
Cr Scott Henschen, one of the event’s organisers, said the decision had been taken reluctantly but was necessary because of current health mandates.
In Nanango, the Nanango Stamp Club’s annual Stamp Fair has been cancelled.
The club had originally planned to hold the event in 2022 after being forced to cancel it last year due to COVID concerns, but the Omicron wave had forced the cancellation this year as well.
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Nanango Race Club’s annual Valentines Day meeting on March 12 will be going ahead as normal but organisers have been forced to restrict entry to people who have been double-vaccinated.
Club president Andrew Green told southburnett.com.au the restriction had been implemented by Queensland Racing and all other race clubs must also adhere to the same mandate.
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On Thursday, Queensland Health reported the South Burnett had recorded 695 known COVID cases since the pandemic began.
Although most of these people would have already recovered, more than 40 cases were new added to the South Burnett tally during the past three days; there are also 14 active cases in Cherbourg.
However, the true figure of local infections is probably much higher.
More than 147,000 cases have not been assigned by Queensland Health to a specific Local Government Area, some positive RAT tests have not been reported and other people may not have come forward for testing. Asymptomatic carriers are also most likely to be in the community.
The Gold Coast Public Health Unit, in conjunction with local universities, conducted two studies of randomised households on the Gold Coast over two recent weekends to get a better idea of what was really happening with COVID-19 in the Queensland community.
Speaking at Thursday morning’s media conference, Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said 117 people were tested on January 22, with 20 coming back positive to COVID-19 after a PCR test.
Only four of these 20 people reported having any symptoms and only two knew they had COVID-19; ie. nine out of 10 people were unaware they were positive.
On January 29, 143 people were tested; 11 were positive with six reporting having symptoms. Again, only two already knew they had COVID.
Dr Gerrard emphasised there were people walking around who had no idea they had COVID-19 which reinforced the importance of wearing masks, even when feeling well.
Another nine deaths in Queensland were announced on Thursday morning; 820 people are in hospital being treated for COVID-19, including 46 in intensive care (23 on ventilators).
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