Queensland has confirmed 39 COVID-19 deaths, the highest number of fatalities in a single day since the pandemic began.

There were also 5665 more virus cases, from 15,151 tests across the state in the 24 hours to 6.30am on Thursday.

Chief health officer John Gerrard said the deaths were not all from the previous 24 hours, with 27 from as far back as mid-January.

He said every pandemic death was tragic, but the spike in fatalities did not indicate any upward trend.

“I really must emphasise this does not mean there has been a peak in deaths, there has not been,” Dr Gerrard said on Thursday.

“In fact, the data clearly shows that the number of deaths from COVID 19 has been falling steadily since the last week of January as we have passed the peak.

“That’s a critical piece of information. So every death, of course, is tragic, but … most of these cases did occur several weeks ago – that does not indicate a sudden peak in cases.”

Dr Gerrard said one of the dead people was aged in their 50s, five were in their 60s, 10 were in their 70s, 12 were in their 80s, 10 were in their 90s and one person was older than 100.

Five were unvaccinated, two had had one jab, 16 had had two doses, and two had had a booster vaccine. The vaccine status of the others wasn’t available.

Meanwhile, there are 382 virus patients in Queensland public hospitals, with another 33 in intensive care and 16 people on ventilators. There’s another 26 COVID-19 patients in private hospitals.

Dr Gerrard said the number of patients in hospital continued to “drop dramatically” and was down by 100 from Monday.