Victorians stranded in Queensland must wait one more day for news on returning home - The Age

Victorians stranded in Queensland won't know when they can return home for at least one more day.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said that "things were looking positive" in Queensland, but that Victorians should stay put in the Sunshine State until Victorian health authorities received a final report from their Queensland counterparts.

Mr Foley said Victorians who flew into Melbourne Airport after border restrictions came into play on Friday night were in breach of Queensland authorities' directions. He said those people were directed to isolate at home and get tested.

"The Victorian government has applied those same arrangements to Victorians," Mr Foley said.

He thanked Victorians and Queenslanders who had been tested over the past few days.

Victoria recorded no new locally acquired cases of coronavirus and six new cases in hotel quarantine on Sunday. One of those cases was an airline crew member.

The state now has 45 active cases, having recorded four straight days of zero cases within the community.

Victoria's COVID response commander Jeroen Weimar said international air flight crews had one of the highest hit rates for the virus.

He said more than 16,000 international airline crew members had been tested over the past four weeks and 11 had returned positive results.

Mr Weimar said it was the highest hit rate of any cohort and the results confirmed the need for the rigorous testing regime.

He said none of the new cases in hotel quarantine were the UK strain of the virus, but that there had been five cases of the more contagious strain within the quarantine system in the last few weeks.

More than 23,000 tests were processed on Saturday as it was revealed a woman recently released from a Melbourne hotel after a 10-day stay had tested positive in Queensland to the highly contagious UK strain.

Both federal and Queensland health authorities came to the defence of Victoria, saying the state’s health officials had acted in accordance with quarantining rules.

Mr Foley said he was satisfied that the correct guidelines had been followed when the woman, who tested positive in Queensland on Friday, was released from a Melbourne hotel on January 5.

On Saturday, at least a dozen flights landed from Brisbane into Melbourne with passengers allowed to isolate at home – despite the Department of Health closing borders to Greater Brisbane at midnight Friday.

Meanwhile, frustrated members of the public who have been waiting a week for test results from Melbourne's Frankston Hospital have been promised results by Monday.

Peninsula Health confirmed that delays from an "unplanned IT outage" this week with private pathology provider Dorevitch was to blame for the still outstanding results.

Earlier this week the Department of Health said there had been 10,000 negative test results caught up in the IT glitch but insinuated all had since been forwarded to people who were tested.

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2021-01-10 01:45:00Z
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