QLD COVID clusters at Brisbane Youth Detention Centre and Melbourne trip believed to have missing link - 7NEWS.com.au

An undiagnosed person with coronavirus may be the “missing link” between two clusters of the virus in south-east Queensland.

Authorities have confirmed the strain of COVD-19 in a young woman who brought the disease back from Melbourne is the same as Queensland’s latest cluster, linked to the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre.

In July, two of three women who travelled to hotspot Melbourne were diagnosed with the disease, leading to three further cases in south-east Queensland.

After weeks of no further community transmission, health officials declared the period where there was a risk of an outbreak was over.

But with 10 cases now related to the detention centre in Wacol, in Brisbane’s outer west, authorities are now revisiting the earlier cluster to establish the link between the two.

File image of a queue for coronavirus testing in south-east Queensland. Credit: 7NEWS

Queensland Health is now working to confirm the results of preliminary genomic testing, which found the strain in one of the patients who went on the Melbourne trip was the same as that in patients related to the detention centre.

“We now have that early genome sequencing information (and) it looks like this cluster has the same viral strain as one of the young women who went down to Melbourne,” Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young said on Tuesday.

Apparent link

“That doesn’t prove it. I need more information, which is being done over the next 24 to 48 hours.

“But at this stage, it does look like they could be linked.

“We don’t have the case between the two clusters.

The traffic around a coronavirus testing clinic at Murarrie in Brisbane on Monday. Credit: 7NEWS

“We’ve had the cluster related to that Melbourne-Logan group, those five people, and the cluster related to the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre - 10 people.

“There’s a missing link between the two.

“There has to have been someone there, who is the link between the two clusters, if that’s what’s proven.

“We don’t know who that person is.”

Young said a 77-year-old detention centre worker, who was the first case found related to the cluster, was not its patient zero.

She said undiagnosed cases “are the ones that lead to chains of transmission” in the community.

“That’s why it’s some important we do our best to find every single case,” she said.

Health Minister Steven Miles suggested the detention centre cluster could have been sparked by another source from Melbourne.

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‘That strain ... is the most common strain circulating in Victoria,” Miles said.

“Therefore, there could be other sources of that strain here.

“Further genomic testing will though be able to confirm if the two are indeed linked, we hope.”

There were no further COVID-19 cases in Queensland overnight on Tuesday, after more than 8,000 people came forward to get tested.

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2020-08-25 02:36:05Z
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