Coast sleuths shine but NZ flight plans ditched

DISEASE detectives working hard behind the scenes and protecting the Gold Coast from COVID-19 outbreaks are not enough to convince the State Government to push for a Queensland-NZ travel bubble.

Since the virus first arrived in the city in January this year, local epidemiologists have helped to track more than 33,000 individuals to identify almost 2769 close contacts with confirmed cases.

Now it’s revealed our local health team was behind a hi-tech tracing app that helped to prevent the state’s major outbreaks in places like Logan, Ipswich and Moreton Bay.

The program helps epidemiologists to monitor cases as they work through the painstaking contact tracing process.

Gold Coast Public Health Unit director Sharon Jurd said the unit grew from just 40 fulltime staff to 141 full-time equivalent roles during the peak of the virus in the city.

“Because every contact had to be tracked manually it was a huge effort for our contact tracers,” Dr Jurd said.

“The app, which was developed here, meant we weren’t using just a spreadsheet to track the progress, this allowed us to work quickly and thoroughly.”

The intelligence was behind the fast tracing needed at the Parklands Christian College in July.

Usually in charge of handling smaller disease outbreaks that may take place on the Coast or tracking down food contaminations like the “needle in the strawberry” sabotage scandal of 2018, the Gold Coast team has discovered the community has a new-found interest in what it does.

“We do a lot of work in the background that people don’t know about but since coronavirus people have a little more appreciation for our work,” Dr Jurd said.

“From working with business to increase their patronage through COVID-safe planning, to supporting people in quarantine to visit their loved ones in palliative care, our team have risen to and bended around the demands the virus has presented along the way with ingenuity.”

While thanking the team, Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said the low COVID-19 rates on the Gold Coast demonstrated just how relentless the team was in staying ahead of the virus. The Gold Coast, which is down to a single case, has not seen a new infection since August 28.

Mr Miles also said a transTasman bubble between New

Zealand and the Gold Coast was unlikely to happen any time soon.

Mr Miles said he was aware of a movement to set up a travel partnership but a decision would still have to be made by Federal Government.

“It really would come after we open up to the rest of Australia probably,” he said.

“It is certainly possible but I would see the next step as NSW then Victoria then NZ.

“Just the practicalities of this, it would need to be an agreement between Australia and NZ as that is how the international border is governed.

“They will need to decide and I don’t think that will happen before there is free movement in Australia.”

BECAUSE EVERY CONTACT HAD TO BE TRACKED MANUALLY IT WAS A HUGE EFFORT FOR OUR CONTACT TRACERS

GOLD COAST PUBLIC HEALTH UNIT DIRECTOR SHARON JURD