A man has survived clinging to a piece of debris for nearly 24 hours in shark- and crocodile-infested waters in the Torres Strait after his boat was swamped by waves.

He was spotted by a rescue jet and winched to safety just in time.

The man in his 30s was found after spending a night clinging to debris, enduring storms and avoiding sharks.

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"It's extremely lucky to the point that it's a miracle to be honest," Queensland Police acting sergeant Jason Jesse said.

"There was gusts of 40 knots of wind, it was the storms, I imagine the sea-state that gentleman would have been in would have been pretty horrible."

The man set off from Moa Island on Tuesday headed for Sue Islet but he got into trouble while refuelling in the open water near Mount Ernest Island, where his dinghy was swamped by waves.

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"He stopped to refuel his boat and in the process of refuelling his boat, a wave had swamped the back of his boat and partially filled it full of water which caused it to capsize," Jesse said.

His overturned dinghy was found the next day after a massive search.

Miraculously, the man was spotted floating in the ocean two kilometres from his boat.

"If he would have been in possession of an EPIRB (radio beacon) and would have been able to activate it, I would say, most definitely, he would have been rescued within a couple of hours," Jesse said.

The man is recovering in hospital.

Farzana (Zana) Yaqubi, 21, was allegedly murdered in an alleyway in Massey on Monday.

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It began when the man made a privacy information request of Auckland’s Pelican Club.

He was subsequently fired and has now successfully claimed it was an unfair dismissal.

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Eight teenage girls were charged with murder on Tuesday in the stabbing death of a 59-year-old Toronto man in what police are calling a "swarming" attack.

The man was found stabbed on Sunday shortly after 12am, following a report of an assault in the area of York Street and University Avenue.

The man was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died, police said.

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Authorities did not release the man's name pending family notification.

The eight girls were found shortly after the attack and taken into custody.

They have now been charged with second-degree murder, Detective Sgt Terry Browne of the Toronto Police Service Homicide Unit said during a news conference on Tuesday.

Three of the girls are 13, three are 14, and two of them are 16, according to a news release from the Toronto Police Service.

The group of teenagers "met each other through social media".

"They come from varying parts of the city," Browne said Tuesday.

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"We don't know how or why they met on that evening and why that destination was downtown Toronto," Browne said, adding police believe the group may have been involved in an "altercation" earlier in the evening before the stabbing.

Browne said he would not call the group of girls a "gang" but noted they participated in a behavior known as "swarming," in which multiple attackers target a victim simultaneously.

A number of weapons were also found with the girls and three of the girls have had "prior contact" with police, Browne said.

The head of the World Health Organisation says the agency is "very concerned" about rising reports of severe coronavirus disease across China after the country largely abandoned its "zero COVID" policy.

The WHO warned China's lagging vaccination rate could result in large numbers of vulnerable people getting infected.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the United Nations agency needs more information on COVID-19 severity in China, particularly regarding hospital and intensive care unit admissions, "in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground".

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"WHO is very concerned over the evolving situation in China with increasing reports of severe disease," Tedros said.

He added that while COVID-19 deaths have dropped more than 90 per cent since their global peak, there were still too many uncertainties about the virus to conclude that the pandemic is over.

Some scientists have warned that the unchecked spread of COVID-19 in China could spur the emergence of new variants, which might unravel progress made globally to contain the pandemic.

"Vaccination is the exit strategy from Omicron," WHO emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan said.

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Ryan said the explosive surge of cases in China was not exclusively due to the lifting of many of the country's restrictive policies and that it was impossible to stop transmission of Omicron, the most highly infectious variant yet seen of COVID-19.

He said vaccination rates among people over age 60 in China lagged behind many other countries and that the efficacy of the Chinese-made vaccines was about 50 per cent.

"That's just not adequate protection in a population as large as China, with so many vulnerable people," Ryan said. He added that while China has dramatically increased its capacity to vaccinate people in recent weeks, it's unclear whether that will be enough.

To date, China has declined to authorise Western-made mRNA vaccines, which have proven to be more effective than its locally made shots. Beijing did agree to allow a shipment of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine to be imported, for Germans living in China.

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"The question remains whether or not enough vaccination can be done in the coming week or two weeks that will actually blunt the impact of the second wave and the burden on the health system," Ryan said.

Like Tedros, he said WHO had insufficient information about the extent of severe disease and hospitalisation, but he noted that nearly all countries overwhelmed by COVID-19 had struggled to share such real-time data.

Ryan also suggested China's definition of COVID-19 deaths was too narrow, saying the country was limiting it to people who suffered respiratory failure.

"People who die of COVID die from many different (organ) systems' failures, given the severity of infection," Ryan said.

"So limiting a diagnosis of death from COVID to someone with a COVID-positive test and respiratory failure will very much underestimate the true death toll associated with COVID."

Countries such as Britain, for example, define any COVID-19 death as someone who has died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.

Globally, nearly every country has grappled with how to count COVID-19 deaths, and official numbers are believed to be a major underestimate. In May, WHO estimated there were nearly 15 million coronavirus deaths worldwide, more than double the official toll of 6 million.

Wieambilla shooter Nathaniel Train was wanted on an outstanding warrant relating to a border breach, but Queensland Police says it had no "red flags" or "raised concerns" about the Train family ahead of last week's execution of two officers.

Deputy Police Commissioner Tracy Linford said police attended the property to follow up a missing persons report for Nathaniel along with an outstanding warrant for him relating to a border breach.

Linford told reporters on Thursday that there were no signs a "run of the mill job" would turn into the police shootout which left six people dead.

She also said the missing persons report appeared to be genuine and not a premeditated ploy to lure police to the ambush.

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'Run of the mill job'

Police attended the property after Nathaniel Train's wife, who resides in NSW, reported him missing. 

Linford said it was normal practice for police to visit the property of family members when following up a missing person reports.

"This was a run-of-the-mill policing job," she said.

"There wasn't anything to flag particular concern with our members who were attending the scene that day.

"His brother and sister-in-law, who was previously actually his wife, did reside at the address.

"So that is a normal course of action for police to check with relatives of a missing person to see."

The deputy commissioner was asked by reporters if the missing person's report was premeditated, she replied saying police believed his wife's report was "genuine".

"She had a genuine concern for his welfare," Linford said.

"She had not had an opportunity to even speak to him by phone since May this year."

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'No red flags' on family

Queensland Police were only aware of an outstanding warrant for a border breach from NSW in December last year for Nathaniel Train.

"The Queensland Police had very little history about the Train family members," Linford said.

"Nathaniel Train's only history with us was a 2014 driving offence and then more recently, events that occurred on the 17th of December last year.

"That revolved around reports that Nathaniel Train had crossed over the Queensland border from New South Wales and had driven his vehicle through an e-gate, causing damage and his vehicle got bogged at that location.

"And when police subsequently investigated the vehicle because they were speaking to other locals in the area, two firearms were handed in.

"Those firearms were registered to Nathaniel Train. He was a licensed firearms holder."

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Meanwhile, Gareth Train had no history with police other than a 1998 offence of unlawfully possessing a firearm.

In terms of Stacey Train, Linford said there was "no criminal history of intelligence holdings on her".

"There was nothing that could have caused a particular flag for our members who attended on that day last Monday, that would have raised any particular concerns about those individuals," she said.

The deputy commissioner said it has continued to be a "complex investigation".

"We have been trawling through social media and have been using the expertise of the AFP in that work, trying to understand and trying to find any postings or information about the Trains on social media," Linford said.

"We are trying to create a timeline of everything they did in the weeks and months leading up to last Monday.

"That means looking at all the phone data, texts, call charge records, emails, examining all their electronic devices, examining all the documents that were seized.

"We are trawling through all their bank accounts looking at what purchases they've made and that might lead us then to other avenues of inquiry."

There was still "little information to indicate it was a planned terror attack," the deputy commissioner said.

"We are certainly not classing it as a domestic terror event," Linford said.

"At this point there's nothing to indicate that.

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"What we can see is sentiment displayed by the three individuals … that appears to be anti-government, anti-police, conspiracy theorist type thing.

"But we can't see them connected to any particular group they might be working with or who inspired them to do anything."

The new details come as thousands gathered yesterday to farewell Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow at a memorial in Brisbane.

Neighbour Alan Dare, who was also killed, will be farewelled at a service held tomorrow.