Queensland Surpasses Daily Tally As Covid Cases Billow

Queensland's reported a massive surge in cases on Friday with 3188 new infections.

It marks the third consecutive day the state has reported a new daily record for Covid cases since the pandemic began. 

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There are currently 126 people in hospital with the coronavirus and one man aged in his 50's is in ICU with the delta variant.

Chief health officer Dr John Gerrard warned “we’re not going backwards” and Queensland “has no plan to change the roadmap”.

“We’re likely to experience a significant wave earlier than expected. Whether we have further waves of infection, we don’t know," he said.

“I am looking quietly optimistic looking forward.”

- Dr Gerrard

There are currently 11,697 active coronavirus cases in Queensland.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced changes to close contact definitions and testing requirements across each State and Territory.

The new reclassification has a close contact as a household contact of a confirmed case only.

A household contact is considered someone who lives with a case or has spent more than four hours with them in a house, accommodation or care facility setting.

“So, you are only a close contact if you are, effectively, living with someone or have been in an accommodation setting with someone for more than four hours with someone who has actually got Covid,” he said.

“Omicron requires us to undertake a change of how we are managing the pandemic, and we need to reset how we think about the pandemic, and how we manage ourselves and the things we need to do as governments,” Morrison said.

The changes came into effect in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, and the ACT at midnight Thursday, while Tasmania will follow suit on January 1.

Meantime, Northern Territory are expected to make an announcement shortly, while Western Australia will continue with their current Covid regulations, unless the situation changes, and South Australia are standing by their own interpretation of a close contact. 

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