Covid-19 Australia: FIVE HOUR long testing queues in Queensland and panic buying in Townsville

Queenslanders are gridlocked in five-hour long testing queues while supermarkets overflow with panicked customers as the state grapples with a new Covid outbreak.

Millions of residents have been plunged into a three-day lockdown amid fears a 19-year-old unvaccinated hospital worker from Brisbane may have spread the highly contagious Indian Delta variant to north Queensland.

The woman tested positive on Monday but is believed to have been infectious in the community for about 10 days, and in that time worked two shifts at Prince Charles Hospital and went on a family holiday to Townsville.

The teenager, whose brother has also caught the virus, worked on a special ward dedicated to Covid cases from overseas as a receptionist, but was not vaccinated, which Annastacia Palazczuk said made her ‘absolutely furious’.

Although the 19-year-old was one of just two Covid cases recorded on Tuesday, health authorities have shutdown all 11 local government areas in the state’s southeast corner, Townsville, and nearby Magnetic and Palm islands, as they battle to contain the more infectious strain. 

The concierge’s brother has since tested positive to the virus, but is yet to be included in official figures.

The principal of St Patrick’s College at Shorncliffe, where the boy is a pupil, has written to parents to advise them of the result.

‘Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers over the next two weeks,’ college principal Chris Mayes said, the Courier Mail reports.

After the lockdown announcement on Tuesday, motorists flocked to drive-through testing facilities across the state, with lines stretching for kilometres. 

Photos posted on social media show customers snaked through shopping centres, waiting to enter capacity-limited grocery stores to pick up supplies. 

Within hours, shelves had been stripped bare of toilet paper, dry food, and other stocks, with many buyers at packed registers spotted without masks. 

Queensland traffic has also issued a road congestion alert along major highways in the state’s south east as residents raced to flee the city ahead of the 6pm lockdown.

Townsville resident Bethany told Daily Mail Australia she left home at 12.30pm to get tested after learning the market she visited on Sunday was an exposure site. 

By 5.30pm, she was still waiting in the queue.  

‘There are only four testing booths, the road is blocked both ways to get in, and there are now eight lanes of traffic – and no one is moving forward,’ she said.

‘There are kids in these cars and babies. Imagine waiting over four hours in the car not moving with a baby. I haven’t moved in 40 minutes. I’ve been waiting over 4.5 hours now and they will be closing at 6pm.’ 

Bethany said the clinic appeared to be struggling to keep up with the workload, and many drivers had abandoned the line. 

‘They’ve been smashed. It’s a s**t show and they’ve literally shut the gate so people can’t enter. They’ve just updated signs to say high traffic flow and be kind to staff.

‘People are leaving and just chucking u-turns and heading home.’ 

Bethany said the disorganisation has instilled doubt the lockdown will end at 6pm on Friday as planned, and many appeared to be breaching health orders.

‘No one is in masks and the security guy has his mask under his top lip,’ she said.

‘It’s going take people days to get tested let alone sort things out in a lock down.

Around 13 million Australians, around half of the population, are now under some form of lockdown restrictions after cases seeped into the community in Brisbane, Darwin, Perth and Sydney.  

As her state became the latest casualty, Premier Palaszczuk said she was ‘furious’ to learn the young woman was not vaccinated but continued to work shifts as a concierge stationed just outside the coronavirus ward of the Brisbane hospital.

‘Despite the health directives that she should have been vaccinated, she was not,’ Ms Palaszczuk said on Tuesday.

‘Let me say, I am absolutely furious about this.’  

Ms Palaszczuk promised an investigation into why the hospital worker was not vaccinated, and expressed exacerbation that unprotected staff continue to show up for work in high-risk environments. 

The 19-year-old woman from Sandgate in Brisbane is believed to have been infectious from Saturday, June 19, before developing symptoms the following Monday.

She visited her local Woolworths and a gym on the Sunday before working shifts ‘outside’ Prince Charles’ specialist Covid-19 ward on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

On Thursday, June 24 she went to Brisbane Airport to catch a flight to Townsville for a family holiday at nearby Magnetic Island.

After three nights on the island, she returned to Townsville and attended the popular markets in Townsville’s CBD on Sunday, June 27 before testing positive to the virus on Monday.

She then returned to Brisbane last Sunday, before testing positive to Covid on Monday.

Late Tuesday, authorities confirmed she has the Indian Delta variant, which is twice as contagious as the original virus and can be spread through fleeting contact that lasts just seconds.

One of her close friends and two of her family members are also now ill, and awaiting test results. The concierge also had contact with three other hospital workers. 

The premier said the snap lockdown will be reviewed before it is due to end at 6pm on Friday. 

But given how contagious the variant is, how long the worker was freely moving around Brisbane and north Queensland, there is a very real risk she has infected others in both locations. 

Every single one of Magnetic Island’s 2500 residents has been told to get tested, and authorities have included Palm Island given it has a large Indigenous population that would be more vulnerable to the virus.

Townsville exposure sites include the airport, the city’s popular Sunday markets, the ferry to Magnetic Island, and the entirety of the island.

Virgin Australia flight 369 from Brisbane to Townsville on Thursday, June 24, is also an exposure site along with the family’s return flight, Virgin Australia, 374, on Sunday, June 27. 

The second case reported on Tuesday was another miner who returned to Queensland from a Northern Territory mine where Delta has also been circulating.

But Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young considers him low risk because he’s been isolating since very soon after returning to his home at Ipswich, west of Brisbane.

He is the second miner among a group of 170 who returned to Queensland from the mine. All are in isolation and are being closely monitored.

The premier acknowledged the hard, fast lockdown would cause pain but did not offer any new support measures for businesses who’ll lose days of trading, despite pressure from the Opposition and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

She repeated demands for the federal government to dramatically slash overseas arrivals, including returning Australians, until vaccination rates are vastly higher in Queensland.

Meanwhile, Queenslanders aged under 60 have been told to stick with the Pfizer vaccine, after the prime minister declared all Australians, no matter their age, would be able to get AstraZeneca at GP clinics under an indemnity scheme.

The partial lockdown covers residents of Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley, the Scenic Rim, the Gold Coast, Townsville, Magnetic Island and nearby Palm Island.

Residents in those areas will only be allowed to leave home to shop for essential items, exercise, or receive or give medical care.

Masks remain mandatory and other restrictions have also been tightened including limiting funerals to 20 people, and weddings to 10 people, including the celebrant and couple.

As cases grow elsewhere Queensland will declare Perth and Peel in Western Australia and Darwin, Palmerston and Litchfield in the Northern Territory as hotspots from 1am on Wednesday.