Minister backs testing

AUSTRALIANS have been urged to maintain confidence in coronavirus testing despite a high-profile false positive result from a young Queensland man who died.

The 30-year-old from the Queensland town of Blackwater had been thought to be Australia’s youngest victim, until a coroner advised subsequent tests were negative.

The death toll has been revised down to 102 after Nathan Turner was removed from the tally, while infection rates remain low.

Queensland authorities have apologised to his partner, who was forced into isolation, and his grieving family.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said yesterday it was right to have mobilised quickly in the town and ramp up testing.

“What they have done is respond to the evidence they had before them, and not to have tested would not have been the right thing,” he said.

“We want our public health authorities to be following up every case, and we want our public health authorities to be able to provide that testing.”

He pointed to findings from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that Australia had one of the broadest and most accurate testing regimes in the world.

There have been 1.5 million tests done in Australia so far.

“Our testing regime is one of the fundamental things which has safeguarded and protected Australians,” he said.

More than 7200 people in Australia have tested positive to coronavirus, with about 480 cases active across the country, while 20 patients are in hospital, three in intensive care and one on a ventilator.

In Victoria, an aged care home in Reservoir is in lockdown after a worker tested positive, while a kindergarten in Macleod has been shut for cleaning after a teacher contracted the disease.

Victoria yesterday reported 10 new cases, with four tied to a cluster at a hotel that had been housing quarantined returned travellers.

NSW authorities are warning coronavirus is still likely to be circulating in the community in people with mild or no symptoms.