The economic cost of containing coronavirus has been huge, but as Queensland continues to showcase the success of the measures, their mental cost has also taken centre stage.
Just two new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Thursday, in what has so far been a very encouraging week, with zero cases on Monday and Wednesday, and six cases on Tuesday.
The Queensland Government will provide a funding boost for Lifeline.Credit:Dan Peled/AAP
The week of low or no increases saw the state’s tally edge up to 1026 cases total, with more than 700 people having recovered.
Queensland authorities have pointed to the strict social distancing restrictions put in place early in the pandemic, as the reason for the falling number of new cases.
However, while there has been economic pain associated with the restrictions, there has also been.
Lifeline, a crisis support and suicide prevention service, has been hit by "demand through the roof" during the novel coronavirus pandemic with 24,000 calls per week across the country.
March saw the highest monthly total of calls in the organisation’s 56-year history.
These numbers prompted Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to give the charity $3.5 million in state government funding to ensure they can answer as many calls from Queenslanders as possible.
Lifeline spokesman Brent McCracken says the charity's op-shops have closed due to COVID-19 limits, as the support service experienced the highest number of monthly calls in 56 years during March.
"Many are facing circumstances they could never have envisaged they’d be in," he said.
"Many are feeling their life is becoming worthless."
The charity has answered about 90 per cent of calls across the country, but they cannot predict high-demand periods, with 3000 calls coming in on Good Friday - which was the busiest day during the crisis.
State Health Minister Steven Miles says Queensland paramedics have recorded a 12-15 per cent increase in cases related to depression, anxiety, suicide or self-harm.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said even though there had only been eight positive tests in the past four days there was still no plan to relax social distancing measures.
"The restrictions that are in place at the moment are onerous. I don’t underestimate what it means for individuals, for families and communities to follow these restrictions, but we know they’ve got to remain in place," Dr Young said.
"We know we could rapidly unravel were we to change what we are doing in a way that didn’t continue to maintain those restrictions."
One restriction that has been relaxed is the number of people at funerals, which Dr Young announced on Thursday would be lifted from 10 to 20 people.
Dr Young has already granted a number of exemptions to funerals with more than 10 people, and said she had been encouraged to see there has not been major outbreaks or case spikes as a result.
"We saw in South Korea, that [funerals] were actually one of the major drivers of their cases," she said.
"[However], you can go and contact [trace] 20 people very quickly and manage it."
Mr Miles said 20 COVID-19 patients remain in hospital with seven of those in intensive care.
He said one of the new cases was a Queensland resident in Western Australia and the other had been in close contact with another confirmed case.
Queensland has now conducted over 90,000 tests, which the minister said combined with the ongoing low figures meant that the state was beginning to squash the virus curve.
-with Lydia Lynch, Matt Dennien and Toby Crockford
Anyone seeking help or support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, beyondblue on 1300 22 4636, or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800
Stuart Layt covers health, science and technology for the Brisbane Times. He was formerly the Queensland political reporter for AAP.
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2020-04-23 07:45:45Z
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