Queensland’s state government will, on April 29, wind up the team responsible for COVID-19 contact tracing, issuing quarantine directions, monitoring quarantine compliance, and reviewing and managing the case data and vaccination status of thousands.
This comes one day after the state ended isolation requirements for household contacts and as governments around the world begin to roll back—either voluntarily or after being overturned by courts—various pandemic measures.
The QTrace Central Contact Tracing Hub was set up on Jan. 13, 2021, around one year after the first case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus, arrived in the Australian state of Victoria (via Guandong) from Wuhan, China—the source of the outbreak.
The hub’s initial goal was “stopping COVID-19 from spreading” in the northern Australian state.
Queensland’s Deputy Chief Health Officer, Dr. James Smith, described the QTrace team as “a crucial cog” in the state government’s response.
“They ensured close contacts were quickly quarantined, reducing the risk of community transmission, and took the pressure off local public health units,” he said in a release on April 29.
The hub traced more than 15,000 contacts and followed up on more than 10,000 cases, according to Queensland Health.
Their remit expanded throughout the pandemic to manage large cohorts of close contacts, issue quarantine directions, monitor compliance while in quarantine, and to facilitate releases of cohorts from quarantine.
In the future, the work of contact tracing in the state will focus on outbreaks in high-risk settings, such as residential aged care facilities, and following up on cases in which new variants of concern were detected. This will be managed by Queensland’s public health units, according to the release.
Smith said the contact tracing team “prevented an untold number of infections” in Queensland, saying “their work has kept Queenslanders safe.”
“QTrace supported the efforts of public health units to keep COVID-19 numbers low until over 90 percent of the state’s adult population was vaccinated and we could lift restrictions,” Smith said.
Queensland had experienced a relatively low number of infections, and fewer hospitalisations, linked to COVID-19 until 80 percent of the state’s population had received two doses of a vaccine, which was the milestone the state-required before it opened its borders which had been closed to other states.
Case numbers then skyrocketed, leading to workforce shortages and supply chain issues. The new Omicron variant of concern was cited as the reason, due to its higher rate of transmissibility, albeit lower severity of the disease.
During this time, the QTrace team helped around 4,700 fully vaccinated Queenslanders return from declared hotspots to quarantine at home, according to Queensland Health.
Until then, residents of the state had been locked out, separating parents from children and denying relatives from visiting dying loved ones. Those allowed in under special conditions were made to pay around $3,000 (US$2,140) to quarantine at state-appointed facilities, usually hotels.
The state then moved to end its hotel quarantine scheme, which was reportedly costing $500,000 per day, by establishing a 500-bed COVID-19 facility at Wellcamp, near Toowoomba, around 126 kilometres (78 miles) west of the state’s capital, Brisbane.
The Wellcamp facility opened in February for the quarantine of unvaccinated travellers, international students, seasonal workers, and mariners. It was funded by the Queensland state government in a partnership with billionaire mogul John Wagner, who leased the facility to the state.
However, the facility’s usefulness was called into question when Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles, who advocated for the facility, said changes to the isolation rules “clearly changes the need for Wellcamp.”
“The facility at Wellcamp will continue in various uses beyond that 12 months. Our lease over it extends for that 12-month period,” Miles told reporters on April 22.
Miles said the Wellcamp facility was pursued at a different stage of the pandemic, saying the state couldn’t know what might come.
The Wellcamp facility is nearby to a proposed entertainment complex and a regional airport, both Wagner family projects supported by the Queensland state government. The airport is used mostly used to export freight to China weekly.
The cost of the facility was shared by the Queensland state government Wagner, but Miles would not reveal the actual figure, saying it was confidential. It is unclear how the facility will be used once the state’s lease expires.
The end of contact tracing and lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in Queensland comes at a time when health authorities had predicted another wave of infections across the state.
But as other states lift restrictions, Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr. John Gerrard said while there might be a “slight increase” in cases, “we do need to move forward.”
The move brings Queensland into line with the states of New South Wales, South Australia, the ACT, and Victoria, which have announced similar changes.
