‘Critical workers’ out of isolation

CRITICAL essential workers will be allowed out of quarantine to go to work to keep the state moving as Queensland prepares for its Covid wave to begin peaking in a fortnight.

And the state’s top doctor has warned health workers to be ready for a significant escalation of Covid-positive patients “in the thousands” needing hospitalisation.

But the state government will not put a figure on exactly how many cases it is expecting in the community and in hospitals, refusing to release “credible” modelling because too many factors could still affect the evolving situation.

On Sunday, Cairns broke through the four-figure milestone, adding 1470 new Covid cases across the region, up from 739 on Saturday.

Queensland recorded a record high of 18,000 new cases on Sunday, with 4320 rapid antigen tests added to the count for the first time under a self-registration process.

There are now more than 80,500 active cases, 402 people in hospital and 22 in ICU.

Chief health officer John Gerrard warned that modelling presented at Sunday’s Queensland disaster management committee meeting predicted hospitalisations would “escalate substantially” in seven days’ time.

“I have an important message, not just for the community but specifically for those in the health care sector,” he said.

“The projections are that the numbers of people accessing health care in the hospital system will escalate substantially from about a week from now.

“And then it will continue to rise, up to about the beginning of February, the first week of February … and my colleagues in the health system need to be prepared for that.”

The warning came as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the government would make changes to the quarantine requirements of workers in critical industries to ensure the state did not grind to a halt.

People will be able to go to work even if they are identified as a close contact so long as they are double-vaccinated, have no symptoms, travel via private transport, wear a mask, and get their day-six test.

They will not be allowed to go anywhere else except for work and will be immediately put back into a seven-day hard quarantine if they develop any symptoms.

“People need to be able to have their lights on, have food in the fridge and have running water,” she said. “We want to ensure our hospitals are staffed, food continues to be delivered to our supermarkets and we can still fill our cars at the petrol station.”