Elevated COVID-19 alerts for Brisbane, the Gold Coast lifted in NT after confusion | NT Independent

Elevated COVID-19 alerts for Brisbane, the Gold Coast lifted in NT after confusion

by | Sep 3, 2020 | COVID-19 | 0 comments

An order of “elevated COVID-19 alert” issued by the NT Government last weekend has been officially rescinded, after needlessly terrifying elderly and Indigenous Territorians and confusing everyone else.

The order was issued for greater Brisbane and the Gold Coast for travel to the NT, restricting those visitors from entering remote communities and from visiting aged care homes across the Territory but not requiring them to quarantine.

Chief health officer Hugh Heggie removed the order Thursday morning with no explanation of why it was put in place to begin with.

“From today people arriving to the NT from those locations are simply reminded to practice physical distancing and increased personal hygiene as per standard COVID-19 principles,” a statement from Secure NT read.

“The Chief Health Officer will continue to monitor all areas across Australia closely and alerts will be issued as required.”

NT chief health officer Dr Hugh Heggie

The decision to bring in the order also raised questions over how precisely coronavirus hotspot areas are determined – another mystery that has of yet gone unsolved.

Dr Heggie’s original directive had the NT Council on the Aging CEO Sue Shearer voicing concerns that the elderly were worried about the order and how it would be enforced.

“The 30-35,000 cohort of over 60s in the NT were very happy with the safety here, but they are now telling me they feel quite worried and unsafe,” Ms Shearer said earlier this week.

Despite health officials stating the NT is well placed to handle COVID-19, Ms Shearer said, “because the chances of an outbreak are high,” concerns over the welfare of the elderly remain elevated.

The elevated alert order also caused some traditional owners near Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to call for all flights from southeast Queensland to be grounded immediately due to concerns around potentially infected people getting into remote communities.

President of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia Dr John Hall told the NT Independent earlier this week that while he supported the original call for an elevated alert for those areas, “we need to accurately define what a hotspot is”.

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