A passenger on a packed Qantas flight from Sydney to Brisbane on April 13 was infectious with COVID-19.
Queensland Health warned other passengers of the diagnosis by text and then a phone call before directing them to self-quarantine in an email on April 16.
The flight, QF520, arrived at Brisbane domestic terminal early on Monday afternoon, April 13.
“A person on this flight was infectious with COVID-19,” the Queensland Health email stated.
“You may be at risk of becoming unwell from exposure until midnight 27th April, 2020.”
Queensland Health did not answer questions and instead referred AAP to their ‘contact tracing alerts’ web page.
It’s unknown if the passenger knew they were infectious when they boarded the flight, or when they were diagnosed with COVID-19.
The quarantining of passengers on the Qantas flight comes as Queensland records an additional five COVID-19 cases overnight, bringing the state’s total of confirmed cases to 1001.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young called the limited numbers “excellent news”.
But she said the state would, unfortunately, see cases grow in the future as the pandemic continued.
There are just 21 Queenslanders in the hospital with the virus, 11 of them are in intensive care.
On April 16, Young said more than 85 percent of cases were in some way related to overseas travel.
She said with more people returning home in the coming days she expected the number of new cases to increase.
“The numbers will get worse because of those people returning from overseas,” she said.
“That’s the group I’m concerned about.”
Young told reporters she was grateful for all travelers who had returned home and were in quarantine for making that sacrifice.
Health Minister Steven Miles urged Queenslanders to keep following instructions following another small increase in confirmed cases.
“If we manage to keep this up, we will go back to normal eventually,” he said.
“This is working really well but now is not the time to stop.”
