Covid Brisbane: ‘Concerning’ new mystery case at major school
Health authorities in Queensland are frantically trying to determine the status of a positive community Covid-19 case detected in a 17-year-old student at a Brisbane high school of more than 2,000 pupils.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told ABC Radio Brisbane the student has no association with international travel and further tests are being undertaken to ensure the result is not a false-positive.
The Department of Education has since shut down Indooroopilly State High School in Brisbane's west, which Ms Palaszczuk described as "very swift action".
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said the case was “quite concerning”.
"I'm struggling to understand how she's acquired it. So we'll have to wait until we get whole genome sequencing results back later today to be able to work out from from she's got this," she told reporters on Friday morning.
Brisbane Covid case spent time in the community
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said the student tested positive overnight after becoming unwell on Thursday.
The student has been in the community for three days and at school for two days, she revealed.
Promisingly her family of five has not recently travelled. Health authorities are now determining potential exposure sites.
Flight and backpackers potentially exposed to earlier Covid case
On Wednesday a community case was detected in a man who had recently completed hotel quarantine in Brisbane.
He attempted to fly to Perth following his quarantine but was returned to Brisbane by authorities after arriving in Western Australia.
He became unwell while staying at a backpackers hostel and tested positive for the Alpha variant of Covid-19 on Monday.
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said authorities are tracking down other passengers on the flight.
The hostel and an adjacent one have been locked down.
The man is understood to have acquired the virus on a return flight from the Philippines via Papua New Guinea.
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