Queensland health authorities are urgently contacting passengers from a Jetstar flight into the Sunshine Coast after a person on board tested positive to coronavirus.
The state recorded just one new case of coronavirus overnight in a relief for authorities amid fears a staff member at the Bolton Clarke Fairview aged care facility in Pinjarra Hills worked while infectious.
The new case is a man aged in his 20s who flew from Sydney to Queensland on Friday.
He is a returned overseas traveller and is currently in hotel quarantine.
Queensland authorities are now contact tracing travellers who were seated close to the man on the Jetstar flight JQ790 from Sydney to Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast on Friday, July 31.
Meanwhile, all but one of the 105 coronavirus tests conducted at a nursing home at the centre of Queensland's new coronavirus fears are negative, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed.
It's unclear why the 105th resident has not had test results released, but Ms Palaszczuk said she was "not concerned".
The testing blitz at the Bolton Clark Fairview aged care facility in Pinjarra Hills began after it emerged a staff member may have there while infectious with COVID-19.
The woman, who was confirmed as testing positive to the coronavirus yesterday, is believed to have contracted the infection after dining at a restaurant attended by three women who allegedly sneaked back into the state after partying in Victoria.
"This is wonderful news," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"I want to thank the families of the loved ones and I want to assure everyone we're doing everything possible to keep your loved ones safe during this time."
The nursing home remains in lockdown, and the home's 150 staff are still undergoing testing.
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young said health authorities would monitor the untested resident particularly closely over the coming days.
"We will just manage that resident even more cautiously and just check on them regularly to make sure they've not got any symptoms," she said.
Next week 'very critical' for Queensland
Ms Palaszczuk said next week is "really critical" in stamping out coronavirus from the state.
There are currently 13 active COVID-19 cases in Queensland.
"We are not out of the woods," she said.
"The next week is still very critical so we're going to monitoring everything very closely over the forthcoming week."
She said there have been 13,703 tests undertaken in Queensland in the past 24 hours.
"Queenslanders are listening, we're doing the right thing and we are in a bit of uncharted waters at the moment but we've got through things worse than this before," she said.
"I'm quite confident that we will pitch in, and practise social distancing and make sure we do good hand hygiene."
Wearing masks 'not essential' in Queensland
Queenslanders do not need to wear masks when out and about, but physical distancing remains key, Dr Young maintains.
"If people wish to wear masks, of course they can but I don't think it's essential at this point in time," she said.
"It's more important – far, far more important to maintain that social distancing.
"When people go to supermarkets, my advice is, whether or not you need it, get one of those really big trolleys and just think, use that trolley as a circle around you.
"Maintain the distance and that will be far more safe than a mask, because masks are not 100 per cent."
Queensland currently has just five active cases recorded outside of hotel quarantine – all of them connected to the three women who have been charged with lying to border authorities after travelling to Victoria.
Dr Young described masks as the "end stage" when "we've tried everything else".
People dismissing symptoms as asthma, hayfever have spread COVID-19
Dr Young is urging all Queenslanders with any flu-like symptoms not to dismiss them as hayfever or asthma and to get tested for COVID-19.
"If you have got any symptom – it doesn't matter what the symptom is, a fever, or a history of a fever, or if you don't know if you have got a symptom – that is when you come forward," Dr Young said.
"Sometimes it is hard to know if this is hayfever today that I have got, or is it COVID? – come and get tested.
"We do know that there have been cases, not in Queensland but in other cases, where people thought it was asthma so they didn't get themselves tested and it was COVID and they had already spread the infection to many people."
She said two of the three women who allegedly snuck back into Queensland after a trip to Melbourne were infectious on the flight home and for eight days out in the community afterwards.
"So, they could have infected people, and those people might not have known they got infected and those people could have infected more people," she said.
"So that is why it is really important that we are just extremely cautious for at least the next week."
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