Another three Queenslanders have died with COVID-19, taking the total number of deaths in the state since the coronavirus pandemic began to 199.
The state has recorded 7,462 new cases in the latest reporting period.
There are 744 people in hospital being treated for COVID. That includes 46 patients in hospital in intensive care.
Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said of the three people who had died with COVID-19, one was in their 60s, one in their 80s and one in their 90s.
Two had received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine and one had also received a booster shot.
The number of deaths are down on recent days but Dr Gerrard said it was too early to say there was a downward trend.
"I probably wouldn't read too much into a single day of reduced data. I think we need to look more for a trend in terms of what is happening with this," he said.
Dr Gerrard said a week ago 878 patients were being treated in Queensland Health hospitals with the virus.
"That's fallen to 744 today, which is a 15 per cent decrease," he said.
"Most of that reduction has been in a relatively small number of areas — the Gold Coast, Logan, Ipswich and Cairns," he said.
"We're expecting that the numbers will start to turn in the rest of south-east Queensland, and elsewhere in Queensland in the next seven days."
Elective surgery suspension to stay for now
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said there were no plans at this stage to end the suspension of category 3, and some category 2 elective surgeries before the start of March despite Queensland case numbers and COVID-19 hospital admissions starting to fall.
"We are not through the wave as far as across the state," she said.
"We're still seeing some higher numbers in the north."
Ms D'Ath said individual hospitals were also having to suspend some category 1 elective operations — those considered urgent enough they are recommended to be performed within 30 days of being added to the waitlist.
She said in some cases, operations had been postponed because of patients testing positive to COVID-19 and in other instances, surgeons had ended up sick.
"Some of those we've moved to other hospitals," Ms D'Ath said.
"All of those things are happening, but as far as the statewide protocol we've put in place, it's category 3 and some category 2 that have been suspended until the end of February."
Queensland Health to play role in school COVID outbreaks
Ms D'Ath said families with children who woke up in the morning feeling unwell would be given priority at testing clinics.
"Don't take them to school," she said.
"You can take them straight to one of our testing clinics and either line up for a PCR, or they will get priority to take a rapid antigen test home, if the parent is comfortable giving that test at home to their young child.
"They'll be able to access those as a priority."
Ms D'Ath said public health units would work with individual schools if there were COVID-19 outbreaks, looking at the individual circumstances to determine how many other students would need to quarantine.
"What we don't want is anyone who's already feeling unwell at home to come to the school," she said.
Ms D'Ath said schools would also have supplies of rapid antigen tests for use by students, teachers and staff members who become unwell during the day.
"What we don't want is anyone who is already feeling unwell at home to come to the school, whether it's a teacher, another staff member or a child," she said.
"We don't want them stepping foot on school grounds.
"They can go to one of those testing clinics and pick up one of those or maybe … arrange for someone else to pick one up from the school."
Ms D'Ath expressed concern about the percentage of five- to 11-year-olds who had received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, which stands at 33.37 per cent.
She called on First Nations people to come forward and get vaccinated.
"It's not too late," Ms D'Ath said.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said 89.53 per cent of Queenslanders aged 16 and over had received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
She said 1.4 million Queenslanders had received a booster shot, about 55 per cent of those eligible.
