Queensland cluster grows by three, restrictions extended to Gold Coast
A new cluster at the Queensland Corrective Services Academy has grown to four after another three people tested positive of COVID-19 on Friday.
Two of the new cases were people living on the Gold Coast and the third in a Forest Lake resident.
A cluster at the Queensland Corrective Services Academy has grown.
The two Gold Coast patients, a woman aged 33 and a man aged 37, were both recruits at the academy and carpool to work together, Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Martin said.
The cluster spread means strict gathering rules imposed in Greater Brisbane and Ipswich at the weekend have now been extended to the Gold Coast from 8am Saturday.
No more than 10 people can congregate inside a home or outdoors, and aged care homes will be locked down, Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said.
"The reason being is that all of these cases we have seen related to the corrections training centre have been in younger people, who have had fortunately for them, of course, very mild symptoms," she said.
"I'm not quite sure of how it's spread within that centre ... we're just working that through at the moment."
A trainer at the prison training academy, aged in his 60s, was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday night, triggering a massive health response.
About 7000 inmates were locked in their rooms from the NSW border up to and including the central Queensland city of Rockhampton.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said 21,653 tests had been conducted in the past 24-hour reporting period.
"It is putting a lot of pressure on our labs, though, and the turnaround time for testing in our public labs is now just over 40 hours," he said.
"So I just urge people to be patient and understand that our lab staff are working around the clock, literally 24 hours a day, trying to turn those tests around as quickly as possible."
More to come.