Happy Holidays Everyone!
With this eventful year wrapping up, we would like to acknowledge the determination and courage demonstrated by everyone in our community. This year we have faced unprecedented challenges and in these uncertain times, we have rallied together and have persevered to ensure that our community, and the whole of Queensland, could return to some sort of normality for the holiday season.
While we acknowledge how well we’ve done in Queensland, it is important to note that COVID-19 is still creating uncertain situations in some of Australia’s other states. This is most obviously seen in NSW with the recent outbreak in the Northern Beaches.
So far, there have been 97 cases related to the Northern Beaches cluster. However, the number of new cases has been decreasing over the last 3 days and there has been record testing within the region. This is great news, and health departments are hopeful that this means that the outbreak has been somewhat contained.
As many people would have seen, Queensland has recently closed it’s borders to travelers from the hotspots. This means that anyone travelling into Queensland from these areas must go into mandatory hotel quarantine for 14 days. These border restrictions and our other public health measures have meant that:
- Queensland has recorded 0 new cases in the last 24 hours and
- Queensland has not had any community transmission in weeks
Even though it seems that we have avoided the worst of this new cluster, we would like to remind everyone that we should stay alert throughout the holiday season. There will be crowds in certain spaces, and people will be having family gatherings and parties. Please remember to continue to physically distance when in crowds, and if this isn’t possible, you can always wear a mask. This is especially important if you are travelling for the holidays. For further information on a COVID Safe Festive Season, please see the Queensland Government’s tips on how to navigate gatherings during the festive season by clicking the link above.
Also, as we have noted in other posts, the festive season can be particularly difficult for some people. If you are feeling lonely or just need someone to talk to, the Beyond Blue hotline will be operating 24/7 throughout the festive period. Please see the “emotional support” section of this post for more information.
We hope that everyone has a great break over the next month and we will be back in the New Year ready to continue our work. There are exciting things on the horizon and we should all be proud of the way we have come together and supported each other throughout 2020.
