Boulia holds out as Queensland’s only COVID refuge...

“The peak should be over and hopefully we can get through,” he said.

“It’s inevitable that’s going to happen, so as long as we can get ourselves prepared for it to make sure we’ve got things in place to try and harness it, we can keep control of it.”

But even accounting for preparation, Cr Britton said health facilities in Boulia and other outback towns were ill-equipped to handle severe COVID-19 cases.

“I’d say they’d have to evacuate them out of Boulia,” he said.

“We’ve just got a healthcare unit, so they’d evacuate anyone out that had to be on an isolator machine anyway.”

In announcing Boulia’s unique status in Queensland, Ms D’Ath had a simple message: “Get vaccinated.”

Cr Britton said vaccination levels in Boulia were “pretty high”, but he did not have a figure available. Official Commonwealth data on vaccination rates by council areas did not include data for Boulia.

Along with vaccinations, Cr Britton was also hopeful Boulia’s harsh conditions could play a part in keeping residents safe, without offering any scientific evidence to support his theory.

“I reckon if something’s going to kill COVID, it could be over 40 degrees and we’ve had a fortnight of that, so that should kill any bug that turns up.”

As for the decision to fully open up Queensland’s borders, which preceded the current wave, Cr Britton said the state government was “damned if they do and damned if they don’t”.

“At the end of it all, being responsible is our own responsibility,” he said.

“We just need to make sure that we forget about the bloody scaremongering and just get on with life, be responsible for our own actions and look out for ourselves.”

Seven Queenslanders lost their lives with COVID-19 in the latest reporting period, the same number of deaths the state reported throughout the entire pandemic coming into 2022.