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Queensland Chief Health Officer (CHO) Dr Jeannette Young has today confirmed the movements within the state of a positive COVID-19 case from Sydney's Northern Beaches, where a cluster has now grown to 28 known infections.
The case was one of three reported by Dr Young today, including two in hotel quarantine who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The third case is a lady in her 50s who travelled up from the Northern Beaches on the 16th of December. She flew up on Virgin flight VA925, arriving into Brisbane Airport at 9:30am," Dr Young said.
"We are currently contact tracing the rows in front of where she sat, behind and either side.
"Anyone who was on that flight should, if they develop any symptoms at all immediately get themselves tested."
The woman then rented a hire car and went to lunch at The Glen Hotel in the southern Brisbane suburb of Eight Mile Plains, so anyone who visited the venue after 11:30am on 16 December has been urged to get tested if they develop any symptoms.
"The lady then travelled to the Sunshine Coast and we're contact tracing there. She went to a hotel but only had contact with the receptionist, so we're working with that receptionist. Otherwise she didn't have any broad contact there.
"She stayed overnight on the Sunshine Coast, and then travelled through Brisbane to return home to the Northern Beaches, and she went into the Prince Charles Hospital [Chermside, Brisbane] and got tested for COVID because a friend of hers let her know from Sydney."
Dr Young has declared the Northern Beaches of Sydney a COVID-19 hotspot, and as of 1am tomorrow anyone arriving in the state who has been in the area since 11 December will need to enter hotel quarantine up until 14 days have passed since they were in the hotspot.
"Anyone in Queensland today, who has been in the Northern Beaches from 11th of December, onwards, any date, needs to immediately go into quarantine wherever they are, so in their home or a friend's home, a hotel or wherever they are in Queensland," she added.
"They need to organize to get themselves tested. That's very important. And they need to stay in that quarantine site, wherever they are, until it's 14 days since they left the Northern Beaches.
"Police will be working through to see how we can fine people, but essentially I'm relying on people to do the right thing, and we know from the start of the pandemic Queenslanders have overwhelmingly done the right thing, so I ask them that they continue to do that."
Updated at 11:06am AEST on 18 December 2020.
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