Queensland has recorded one of its highest death tolls of the pandemic, with 27 COVID-related fatalities in the latest reporting period.
Acting Chief Health Officer Peter Aitken said today's death toll included 23-month-old Ruby Edwards, who died from COVID-19 at the Queensland Children's Hospital on Sunday.
"But the bulk of them [the deaths], the rest of them, are people aged over 50," Dr Aitken said.
"The vast majority are people in their 80s and 90s at 17 of the 27, and a significant number of those people either had not been vaccinated or have only had one vaccine and certainly have not had their full access to boosters.
"About 50 per cent of our deaths continue to be in our aged care facilities," he said.
Dr Aitken said the death toll for this reporting period was based on figures from the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, which may include deaths recorded outside of a single day.
Hospitalisations have dropped below 1,000 for the first time in around a week, with 955 COVID patients being treated in the state's public and private hospitals, down from 1,023 yesterday.
However, the number of ICU patients has increased to 32 from 26 yesterday.
Queensland reported 7,364 new cases of COVID-19, taking the number of active cases across the state to 61,968.
On the death of Ruby Edwards, Dr Aiken said: "It's a tragic case, it's a very rare complication and I don't want to talk about the individual circumstances of that child."
"It's a tragic situation for that family.
"This was an incredibly rare complication of COVID … COVID isn't going to suddenly go out and kill all our children, that is not going to happen.
"The best way you can protect your kids when they can't get vaccinated is to look after yourself and make sure you don't get COVID and take it home to your family."
Wellcamp was 'the right decision' at the time
Asked about the state government's decision to mothball the $220 million Wellcamp quarantine facility, Dr Aitken said opening the site was the "right decision" at the time.
"Remember when we were talking about planning for Wellcamp and isolation, we were talking about Delta [the variant] and Delta is a very different beast … it has a much more severe illness, much higher death rates, much higher hospitalisations and ICU rates," Dr Aitken said.
"I think it was the right decision to look at planning for how we could isolate, quarantine and protect our communities in the face of what was a much more severe virus.
"I don't think any international epidemiologist anywhere has been able to predict the waves, the mutations, the different strains that occurred with COVID and I think it's probably important that we plan for the worst and hope for the best.
"I think this has been a really important insurance policy to have."
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said his only regret was that the facility wasn't built sooner.
"If we'd built it sooner, it would've been available sooner, Queenslanders would've been safer," Mr Miles said.
"Throughout the entire pandemic, we took a be-prepared approach and I don't regret anything about that.
"When we eventually determined to go ahead with the facility, it was the day after we had maxed our hotel accommodation across the entire state … we had more than 5,000 people in hotel quarantine."
Mr Miles said isolation facilities had also been mothballed in other states.
"We weren't the only people who thought we needed a dedicated quarantine facility, we were just the fastest to build them," he said.
The state government's Wellcamp lease will finish in April next year.
Mr Miles said the government was assessing alternative uses for the site from February onwards, but the facility was "unsuitable" for some proposed options, such as a hub for the homeless or victims of domestic violence.
"The nature of a quarantine facility is to keep people apart," he said.
"We'll continue to assess them [the options] and, if any are suitable, the facility will be there for that use," he said.
Dr Aitken said he was "very confident" the Ekka would go ahead as planned in early August.
