I've lost track of how many times in the past few months that has happened but our luck is holding out, which is great news.

I've watched enough 10am daily press conferences from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young to know the three-part message of wear masks, get tested and get vaccinated is getting through, certainly in the south-east of the state.

Up here where we have yet to have a positive case in 18 months, people are understandable a little more complacent about a threat that does not seem immediate.

But as Dr Young keeps say, COVID is coming to Queensland whether we like it or not, and that means COVID is coming to North West Queensland, again whether we like it or not.

It is coming because sooner or later Queensland will have to open up to other states if it is to fulfil its part of the national plan bargain.

That means we will go from zero case to some unknown number.

Planning what that number looks like is critical and a group of medical professionals has warned, a lack of real-time data from Queensland public hospitals is making it difficult to plan for potential outbreaks of the COVID-19 Delta variant when the state opens to the rest of the country.

The Australian Medical Association-led group of doctors are gathering for a roundtable meeting to discuss the "ramping crisis" before interstate borders reopen later this year warning Queensland hospitals could be overwhelmed,

With that in mind, it is good to see the Western Queensland Alliance of Councils have deployed a digital dashboard which they hope will give a clear picture of COVID-19 vaccination rate uptake in the Outback and in some cases, a wake-up call.

The fact is we need to emerge from our complacency and heed the same messages drummed into people in the south-east corner: wear masks, get tested, and get vaccinated.

We've still got a long way to go before this crisis ends, and we must all do our bit.