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The Cairns Showgrounds COVID-19 testing clinic will shut down this Sunday as the region moves further towards using rapid antigen tests.
The temporary clinic was established at the height of Cairns’ COVID-19 wave in January.
Rapid antigen tests have since become more widely available, with Queenslanders now able to record their positive result online after testing at home.
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Cairns & Hinterland Hospital & Health Service (CHHHS) will continue to run COVID-19 testing in its Portsmith drive-through clinic, while several private clinics also offer PCR testing.
“Our fever clinics have played very important role since the start of the pandemic, but the ease and efficiency of RATs has started to outweigh their usefulness to health authorities,” CHHHS executive director COVID-19 Response, Dr Donna Goodman said.
“We do still require PCR testing, as it can detect the presence of the virus even at very low concentrations, and therefore make a definite diagnosis of COVID-19.
“But we are happy that we have reached a point in our pandemic response where we are able to wind back the amount of fever clinics we needed in place to detect COVID-19 across our region.
“[We can also] return some of our hard-working staff to their regular roles within the health service.”
Dr Goodman said CHHHS would stand up another fever clinic at short notice if there was a sudden surge in case numbers.
“We are in a pretty good place at the moment where the double-vaccination rate in the CHHHS region is more than 93 per cent,” she said.
“Our case numbers have dwindled from approximately 1500 per day at height of the Omicron wave, to approximately 250 per day now.
“We aren’t out of the woods yet, though.
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“We don’t know what to expect when international flights start touching down at Cairns Airport.
“In any case, we still need people to get tested if they have any symptoms of COVID-19 and isolate immediately until returning a negative result.”
The latest Queensland Health data indicates the Cairns region has recorded 32,186 cases.
Of those, 43 have died and 41 are active today.
Main points
- The Cairns Showgrounds testing clinic will close down after this Sunday, 27 March
- CHHHS will continue to run the Portsmith drive-through testing clinic each day
- The number of daily positive cases reported in the region has dropped to around 250
