Call out for town to get Covid test
DARLING Downs Health officials have urged anyone in Goondiwindi who feels even the slightest bit ill to get a Covid test after a worryingly low turnout at yesterday’s pop-up fever clinic.
As of 3pm, only 65 residents attended the clinic at the Goondiwindi Hospital.
The drive-through test site was put in place after a confirmed Covid case visited the Goondiwindi BP truck stop on August 26 from 5.30-6.30pm.
A DDH spokeswoman said it was imperative that anyone who was at the truck stop during this time got tested as well as anyone in the community who had Covidlike symptoms.
Symptoms include fever, sore throat, runny nose, diarrhoea, loss of smell and/or taste, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, vomiting or nausea.
The drive-through testing clinic will remain open today.
The hospital test site is for the general public, while truck drivers should use their designated test site at the Caltex Goondiwindi.
This second site will also be open to interstate agricultural workers.
“We are expecting that the community will respond to the recent news about a local exposure site and present to be tested,” Darling Downs Health, Health Emergency Operations Centre, executive lead Annette Scott said.
“This is excellent and what we want people to do.”
News of the confirmed close contact filtered through Goondiwindi late on Wednesday, but Chamber of Commerce president Peter Travers said residents and business owners were taking it in their stride.
“It is business as normal – we have been under several lockdowns for the past 18 months so most businesses are used to them and will comply with the restrictions,” he said.
The confirmed close contact in Goondiwindi came about a week after a similar alert in St George.
News of the close contact in St George prompted a flood of hotel booking cancellations, despite Qld Health later clarifying that the case was a false positive.
Mr Travers said he did not expect that would happen in Goondiwindi as the town’s hotels and motels were already doing it tough.
“They are down about 50 per cent,” he said.
“You can only cross the border for essential reasons – shopping and essential work – so there are no travellers.”
It comes after the Australian International Islamic College at the Gold Coast was forced into lockdown after two students boasted to classmates that they had travelled to Melbourne despite the city being in lockdown.
Their family, which includes three children under the age of 10, was forced into quarantine but has refused to undergo Covid testing.