Chief health officer describes Covid-19 as ‘just another virus’

John Gerrard told reporters on Tuesday that people merely had anxiety about the unknown.

“Once you actually start to see a few patients, particularly those who haven’t treated Covid before … they realise they’re no different to other patients that we’re used to looking after and that initial anxiety settles down,” Dr Gerrard said.

“I’ve experienced that personally myself with Covid, I experienced that with ebola in West Africa.

“Once you see these patients and you realise they’re just people, like other patients you’re used to seeing, then I think that anxiety will settle.

“I think it is the anxiety of the unknown … it is just another virus. There’s nothing mystical or magical about it.

“It’s just another respiratory virus, and in this case, we’ve got an effective vaccine.”

His comments came as Queensland recorded one new death and 20,566 new cases of Covid-19 overnight.

There are 502 people in hospital, with 27 in intensive care and six of them on ventilators.

Authorities say 87.9 per cent of people are fully vaccinated.

During the same press conference, Dr Gerrard blasted people for holding “Covid parties” in a misguided attempt to build up a natural immunity to the virus.

The trend has reportedly seen unvaccinated people deliberately expose each other to Covid-19 instead of getting a jab.

“Covid parties – they are utterly ridiculous,” Dr Gerrard said.

“They are ridiculous. So please stop them. Please stop.”

Originally published as Queensland’s chief health officer describes Covid-19 as ‘just another virus’