Brisbane school is shut down with hundreds of kids sent home after shock positive Covid test in a 13-year-old student
- A 13-year-old girl at St Thomas More School in Brisbane tested positive
- All students at the Sunnybank private school had been ordered home
- A truck driver was infectious in south-east Queensland for two days
- Border restrictions would be eased as lockdown is lifted in northern NSW
Students at a Queensland school have been ordered home for the day after a student tested positive to Covid-19.
The 13-year-old at St Thomas More School in Sunnybank, Brisbane, was announced by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the state’s Covid update on Friday morning.
‘It’s just to come to hand and is under investigation,’ she told reporters.
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said the information had only been handed to her this morning.
‘There is a 13-year-old girl who tested positive, she was at school in the last few days,’ Dr Young said.
‘I advised the principal of St Thomas More school for all children at that school to be picked up and taken home and to go into quarantine for 14 days, unless we get other advice which will change that.’
Household members of the students will also be required to self-isolate.
A 13-tear-old female student at St Thomas More College at Sunnybank, Brisbane tested positive for Covid, forcing all students at the school to be sent home on Friday
Dr Young said she didn’t have extra information about the student’s case but expected genome sequencing later today. She would not confirm whether the vase would need to a new lockdown in south-eastern Queensland.
‘I need more information. I can’t make a decision with five minute’s information,’ she said.
There was also one overseas-acquired case located on an offshore ship.
The state remains concerned about a truck driver who arrived from NSW and was infectious in the south-east of Queensland on September 5 and 6.
Contact tracing alerts were issued by Queensland Health for locations around the south-east, including the BP at Archerfield, a Grill’d outlet, MoMo Korean Chicken and Beer and the Cinnabon store at Westfield Garden City in Upper Mount Gravatt.
The truck driver, a man in his 20s, had received one dose of vaccine. He was tested in NSW, who then advised Queensland of his positive result.
Dr Young said she assumed he was carrying the Delta variant.
More essential workers and students would be allowed to cross back and forth between Queensland and NSW from next Monday, 1am, after lockdown restrictions were lifted in northern NSW LGAs
People in border communities will now be allowed to travel between NSW and Queensland for a wider range of essential reasons
From Monday the categories of essential worker who can cross both ways between NSW and Queensland have been expanded as a result of the lockdown being lifted in northern NSW LGAs.
Students for 12 LGAs in northern NSW where the stay-at-home order was lifted would again also be allowed to cross into Queensland.
‘This is a revert to the last border setting. People will be allowed to travel for school, for work that cannot be done from home, for essential shopping, for health care or to care for someone who is vulnerable,’ Deputy Premier Steve Miles said.
‘We’ll be monitoring it very closely… if there are any positive cases that come from those LGASs, [NSW] will put them back into lockdown,’ Ms Palaszczuk said.
The previous arrangement would come into effect from next Monday, 1am.
Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said restrictions would remain in place, including requirement for essential workers to have had one dose of vaccine. All vehicles would be checked and correct border passes must still be carried.
Ms Palaszczuk defended accusations the government’s exemptions unit for those trying to come to Queensland was disorganised, saying she had committed more staff to the unit.