Children Five To 11 Now Eligible For The Jab As Queensland Records 784 Cases

Queensland recorded 784 new cases on Monday, another slight rise following 714 reported infections on Boxing Day.

Of the confirmed cases detected from 24,500 swabs collected on Sunday, Omicron appears to be the dominant strain presenting in 75 per cent of cases, with most cases “on the young side”, according to chief health officer John Gerrard.

Stay up-to-date on the latest news with The National Briefing - keeping you in the loop with news as it hits.

Meanwhile, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has urged eligible people to get not wait, but to get their booster shots now.

It follows the Premier announcing that Queensland Health would start accepting vaccinations for children aged between five and 11.

"This is really important now because we know this pandemic can actually have impacts on the unvaccinated, mild symptoms in children, but we do want to make sure our children are protected," she said.

"It's important that we get as many children vaccinated as we can before school goes back and children get a smaller dose of course, and this has been tested.

"But it is up to you to decide whether or not your children get vaccinated but the more of our community that are vaccinated, the better," she urged.

Meantime, deputy premier Steven Miles issued a warning to Queenslanders who have chosen not to get vaccinated.

“NSW are seeing lots of young people who are unvaccinated admitted to their ICUs,” he said.

“I don’t want to see that in Queensland. None of us do."

“The best way to stop yourself getting severe disease and ending up in ICU from Covid-19 is getting vaccinated. Please get vaccinated,” Mr Miles pressed.

Furthermore, Dr John Gerrard purported that despite the effectiveness of vaccines, exposure sites would continue to pop up across the state.

"You can assume that wherever you live in Queensland you have the potential now to be exposed to this virus and you should be living your life as though that is the case," he said.

"Wearing a mask whenever you're indoors and close to other people."

- Dr Gerrard

There are currently 3621 active coronavirus cases in Queensland.

For Australians looking for intelligent and unbiased news coverage, join renowned journalist Natarsha Belling on Your Morning Agenda for breaking national and international stories as well as the top business and finance stories - every weekday from 6:30am on Listnr