Local woman infected
A TOWNSVILLE woman who tested positive for coronavirus had been on the infected Ruby Princess cruise ship, which was controversially granted permission to let 2700 passengers disembark despite pending test results.
The woman is the third confirmed case in the city, and is believed to be one of 15 of the 60 new COVID-19 patients in Queensland linked to the ship.
The Ruby Princess was granted permission to dock and disembark in Sydney last Thursday despite pending testing results of those showing coronavirus symptoms.
How this was allowed to happen has sparked controversy, with the Australian Defence Force now pulled in to help New South Wales authorities track down passengers from the ship to tell them to self-isolate. The Townsville Bulletin can reveal the woman’s husband and her son, a Ryan Catholic College student, were also on the cruise and all three have been in isolation since returning, and therefore there is no risk to the community.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in the state to 319, announced Queensland borders would shut at midnight tomorrow, following similar measures in Tasmania, the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and South Australia.
The NRL 2020 season was officially suspended indefinitely and the International Olympic Committee finally admitted the Tokyo games would be postponed for at least a year.
But schools will remain open in the state, with pressure building from Queensland’s powerful teachers’ union demanding students be sent home.
Townsville’s The Ville Resort-casino has been brought to its knees, shedding 600 jobs yesterday and announcing it would shut completely for now after the Federal Government introduced new shutdown measures that resulted in pubs, cafes, gyms, casinos and places of worship shutting from noon yesterday.
Bottle shops in Townsville were packed yesterday as people stocked up fearing further lockouts. Hundreds of jobs have already been lost in the city as the pandemic cripples the economy, causing long queues at Centrelink offices in Townsville and across the country.
The unprecedented surge in people seeking welfare assistance, about 98,000 alone trying to access payments via the mygov website, overwhelming the service yesterday, though it was originally mistaken for an attempted cyber attack.
North Queensland’s dearth of COVID-19 cases when compared with the southeast corner has sparked Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter to echo his father’s calls to quarantine the top half of the state.
He said it was time to get the army to monitor road entry points though freight and essential travel would be excluded.