All three tested positive to the highly contagious new South African variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, after completing hotel quarantine in the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. We ve had roughly around 400 tests already done of people who have travelled to New Zealand recently, including people who ve been in the Pullman, Queensland Health Minister Yvette D Ath said. They ve all come back negative. Ms D Ath said that in the past 24 hours, Queensland had carried out 6959 tests for the pandemic virus, up by 753 from yesterday. We can attribute some of that increase in testing to people who have been travelling in New Zealand, who have arrived in Queensland, and who now are heeding our advice and going off and getting tested, she said.
An infectious disease physician is not worried about COVID-19 ‘vaccine hesitancy’ among health workers at his hospital, one of six named as vaccine hubs.