A man who works in finance on the Sunshine Coast and his 12-year-old son have tested positive to COVID as the mask mandate that was due to expire on Friday was extended.
Queensland recorded three new locally acquired cases including the man who works at a financial firm at Cotton Tree and attended the office while infectious on Wednesday.
The other two cases were the man’s 12-year-old son who flew into Queensland from Sydney on July 9 on flight QF544 after spending three months in the USA with his mother, and a fully vaccinated airport worker.
The boy who lives in Newport, Brisbane, had completed hotel quarantine in Sydney before flying to Brisbane and got tested on July 13 at the Aspley Medical Centre after developing symptoms.
The father who went to the airport to pick up the boy and his partner also tested positive but the mother was negative, however she remains in hospital with her son.
Dr Jeanette Young said the father works at Rowland Financial Advisors on The Esplanade, Maroochydore, and had attended for one day while potentially infectious and contact tracing was under way.
However she said it did not appear as though the boy and father had attended many other venues but new locations would be listed on the Queensland Health list of exposure sites.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said because of the new cases, restrictions that had been in line to be eased in 11 local government areas on Friday would remain in place for another week.
However restrictions would ease at 6am in Townsville.
“We won’t be able to ease our restrictions in the Greater Brisbane area and I know people will be disappointed by that, I am disappointed by that … but what we are seeing is that these outbreaks are happening across the country,” she said.
“We’ve just got to get on top of these things quickly.”
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the boy had travelled to the US and arrived back in Australia via Sydney Airport on June 21 with his mother.
He then flew with his mother to Brisbane on Qantas flight 544 on Friday and is believed to have given his father the virus after arriving home.
The mother has tested negative so far but is now in hospital with her son, who tested positive on Wednesday.
Dr Young said the airport worker is a woman who had been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer jab and lives in Tarragindi in Brisbane’s south.
The worker had worked at the airport for three days while infectious.
“So, because we have now got these three new community cases and I suspect I’ll get confirmation later today … they are unrelated to all of our other cases, these are new outbreaks,” Dr Young said.
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Ms Palaszczuk also urged Queenslanders in Victoria and NSW to consider returning home due to outbreaks in those states.
The premier said people planning trips to the southern states should reconsider their need to travel at all.
“I cannot be clearer. We are seeing these little spot fires happening across the nation and we need to make sure we get this under control,” she said.
