Queensland authorities have confirmed a man in his 80s has died in a Brisbane hospital from complications due to COVID-19.
His death takes the nation’s death toll of coronavirus deaths to 910 since the beginning of the global pandemic in January last year.
It is the state’s seventh death from the coronavirus, and the first recorded in Queensland since last year.
Health minister Yvette D’Ath said the Australian man passed away on Monday night after returning to Queensland from the Philippines.
“This is another reminder that this is a deadly virus and we are still seeing thousands of people around the world on a daily basis dying from COVID,” she said.
Queensland’s chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young said the man, 80, was an Australian returned traveller who had been living in the Philippines.
The man returned to Australia on March 20 and tested positive on March 25 while in hotel quarantine. He was taken to Prince Charles Hospital on the same day for “ongoing management”.
She said he had been in ICU but “not when he died”.
“I’m sure he acquired the infection in the Philippines … he tested [positive] in hotel quarantine and then was moved as soon as he tested positive, as our policy is, to a hospital for ongoing management,” Dr Young said.
The state recorded two new cases of COVID-19 in hotel quarantine overnight.
