Officially, Queensland recorded one new local case of COVID-19 today, but this is thought to be an historic case and not related to the current outbreak.
However, Queensland health authorities are now investigating whether a returned traveller inside the Grand Chancellor Hotel who tested positive on their Day 12 exit test contracted the infection inside the hotel.
They had been staying on the same floor as the patient with the UK strain who was transferred to the Princess Alexandra, where they are believed to have infected the junior doctor.
It is the same quarantine hotel where an outbreak in January sent the whole of Brisbane into lockdown.
Urgent genome sequencing is now underway as health authorities work to determine whether the latest case's genome matches that of the original case.
In the meantime, the Grand Chancellor Hotel has been sent back into lockdown, with no new overseas travellers admitted and no current guests who have finished their 14-day quarantines released.
There have been 5,026 tests in the past 24 hours, with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk saying the next 48 will be "very crucial" in containing the fresh outbreak.
The three primary contacts of the PA doctor have all tested negative to COVID-19, but will remain in isolation for 14 days.
Testing of the doctor's 238 community contacts is underway.
PA doctor 'didn't routinely work in quarantine ward'
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said 1615 of the hospital's 3862 staff had received their first shot.
"We need to remind ourselves that we are only in week three of a national vaccination rollout," Ms D'Ath said, noting that no state or territory has completed Phase 1A inoculations of high-priority individuals.
The junior registrar is thought to have caught the virus from one of two patients brought in from hotel quarantine in the early hours of Wednesday, March 10.
She was not assigned to any particular ward and worked throughout the hospital.
"This particular doctor did not routinely work in the quarantine ward," Ms D'Ath said.
"She was called on at around 2.30am in the morning to assess a couple of arrivals from hotel quarantine who were showing symptoms."
Ms D'Ath also said it was "completely untrue" that the doctor could not have contracted the virus if she had received her first dose of the vaccine, noting that the vaccine would reduce the severity of the disease but did not stamp out transmission.
Queensland quarantine hotel in lockdown amid potential COVID-19 transmission - 9News
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