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Queensland has recorded 17 new locally acquired cases in the past 24 hours. 

This includes the one case reported in Cairns. 

The man, a reef pilot, has been confirmed to have the Delta strain. 

His partner and child, who attends the Bluewater Village Early Learning centre, have so far tested negative.

His source of infection is still under investigation, although it is not linked to the cluster currently circulating in Brisbane. 

This means the man has acquired the virus from another cluster in Australia or overseas. 

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Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young said that the man most likely acquired the infection while working on a vessel.  

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"He has extremely high [cycle threshold] CT values, which means very little virus," she said. 

"It was enough virus to sequence, so it is enough virus to infect someone.

"But the thing we feel most comfortable about is that he's not spread it to his household contacts."

The man is believed to have been infectious since Thursday, 29 July, the day he flew from Brisbane to Cairns.

He started showing mild symptoms on Saturday, 31 July. 

More than 500 contacts of the case have been identified and have undergone testing, with no positive results yet reported. 

The man was fully vaccinated with Pfizer in March. 

Dr Young is confident other Maritime Safety Queensland personnel pose very little risk to the community, as they were all fully vaccinated earlier this year. 

“I don’t think we need to extend our stay at home orders, at this stage, beyond the 11 LGAs [in south-east Queensland]," Dr Young said. 

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There was a record number of 51,479 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.

Dr Young said she was getting more confident there were not other chains of transmission in the community due to high testing numbers.

"Absolutely brilliant result. Thank you to every single person who came forward and got tested," she said.

Far North Queensland is ramping up its testing facilities today with additional clinics and extended hours. 

This includes a pop-up, walk-in testing clinic opposite Cairns Hospital, as well as a testing clinic at Bluewater Village Early Learning centre for families of attending children. 

A total of nine Queensland Health-managed clinics are operating across the region, as well as 20 private testing clinics. 

Find your closest COVID-19 testing and fever clinic here

Bookings are being taken for some clinics to help ease queues, while some are taking walk-ins. 

Additional locations across Cairns and surrounding suburbs are expected to be added to the list of contact tracing venues today. 

Another two cases were acquired overseas and detected in hotel quarantine, bringing the state's total active cases to 100.

Tropic Now aims to continually update this story, along with all COVID-19-related coverage, with the latest information. Therefore this story may have been edited since its publication date and time. 

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Main points

  • The Cairns man's Delta variant does not match any known genome sequence in Queensland
  • His household contacts have tested negative and will remain in home quarantine for the next 14 days
  • The infection risk to the Cairns community is considered 'very, very low but not zero'
Although the risk [in Cairns] is very, very low, it is not zero.
Dr Jeannette Young
Queensland Chief Health Officer
I suspect the chances [Cairns will] go into lockdown are very, very low, although not zero.
Dr Jeannette Young
Queensland Chief Health Officer