Annastacia Palaszczuk has extended the three-day snap lockdown past 6pm tonight for parts of the state, in a blow to Queenslanders.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has extended the three-day snap lockdown past 6pm tonight for parts of the state, in a blow to Queenslanders.
“The Brisbane City Council and Moreton Bay local government areas, the lockdown will continue for 24 hours,” the Premier said.
The stay-at-home orders will end tonight for Noosa, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Redlands, Gold Coast, Scenic Rim, Lockyer Valley, Somerset, Townsville and Palm Island.
“There will be restrictions that continue to apply – those restrictions will be in place for the next two weeks,” she said.
“That means everyone will have to carry a mask on them and wear that mask whenever they’re outside of their home, but not when you are driving your vehicle, but obviously that means going to shopping centres, hospitals, aged care facilities, churches, everywhere else.”
Ms Palaszczuk made the decision after three new cases were detected overnight, including a mother and daughter from Carindale and a Brisbane International Airport employee, linked to a Qatar Airways check-in counter worker announced yesterday.
Health authorities do not know how the mother and daughter caught the virus.
“They have been out quite extensively around Brisbane,” she said.
“We really need our contact tracers, this is the advice of Dr Young, to really get on top of this issue quickly today. We will get more information during the day but it is absolutely vital that we get on top of this today, everyone. I am just asking for that extra 24 hours.”
She said the lockdown extension would be reassessed tomorrow morning.
Chief health officer Jeannette Young said she was “grateful that people will remain in lockdown” in those two local government areas.
“Please don’t leave Brisbane or Moreton Bay to go anywhere else,” she said. “I don’t want to spread this virus beyond where it currently is.”
Asked what would cause the lockdown to be further extended past tomorrow, Dr Young said it was “too early” to say.
“We have extended it today because of these totally unknown cases but let’s just get through today,” she said.
“It’s too hypothetical. I’m sorry. It is a very sensible question, I would hope that it doesn’t need to be extended.”
Ms Palaszczuk conceded it was “incredibly difficult” for small business owners.
“Unfortunately we are in a world pandemic and no one knew that the virus was going to keep mutating, that we were going to have this highly contagious Delta strain now,” she said.
“Like I’ve said, we need to get the population vaccinated and then we will be in a position where we won’t have to do these lockdowns.”
Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWireSource:News Corp Australia
It came after Ms Palaszczuk said on Thursday that the fact there were only two locally acquired cases overnight was “very encouraging news”.
“We are very encouraged at the moment that we’ve only really got those two cases,” Ms Palaszczuk told reporters in Brisbane.
“We have had record tests in the past 24 hours and we have had again a record vaccine number delivered. All of this and the fact that we are not seeing more wide-scale community cases is very encouraging.”
But the Premier warned “we’re not out of the woods yet”.
“We’ve got got another 24 hours to see what happens and we will update you tomorrow in relation to whether or not we can (end) lockdown,” she said.
Ms Palaszczuk called the snap Covid-19 lockdown for south-east Queensland, Townsville, Palm Island and Magnetic Island on Tuesday after a two new locally acquired cases of the virus were detected.
One of them was a Brisbane hospital receptionist who had spent 10 days in the community while infectious with the Delta variant.
Speaking on the ABC’s QandA on Thursday night, Ms Palaszczuk said Australia simply could not contain new variant with its current systems, pointing to hotel quarantine breaches in nearly every state.
“I’m telling you we can’t contain this virus,” she said.
“It is now the most infectious strain, the Delta variant, it is going to be more and more difficult to contain it when we have something like 3000 people in our hotel quarantine.”
Yesterday, The Courier-Mail reported that contingency plans to extend lockdown were being drawn up as health authorities anxiously awaited thousands of test results, as dozens of exposure sites were listed across the state including supermarkets, fast food outlets, shopping centres and flights.
The Premier said on Tuesday that she would wait until Friday morning before making a final decision on whether to end the restrictions.
“Hopefully we can get through these three days, fingers crossed, and things will be able to return to normal,” she said.
An empty King George square in central Brisbane. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWireSource:News Corp Australia
So far the latest outbreaks do not appear to have gotten out of control.
On the first day of lockdown, three new locally acquired cases were announced, one of them the brother of the hospital receptionist.
But only two were announced yesterday, neither of them connected to the hospital outbreak.
One was linked to the Portuguese restaurant cluster and was already in quarantine.
The other was a 37-year-old woman who works at the Qatar Airways check-in counter at Brisbane International Airport.
“She has been to very limited places around her local area,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young was asked whether she was surprised there had not been more cases linked to the hospital receptionist due to the highly transmissible nature of the Delta variant.
The previous day, Dr Young had said she was “running out of ideas” as the state battled multiple clusters at once, three involving the Delta variant, which she said was “virtually impossible to control”.
“It’s still early,” she said on Thursday.
“We’ve got to see 14 days. These three days that we are in at the moment in lockdown gives us the opportunity to make sure we’ve found everyone and we’ve got them in quarantine. It’s too early to be confident we won’t get more cases.”
But Dr Young said she was hopeful lockdown would lift at 6pm tonight.
“I’m very encouraged,” she said.
“But I’ve got to say we have another 24 hours. Five incidents we are now having to manage with this additional one related to the International Airport. That’s a lot. Each incident in and of itself I’m pretty confident about. They have all been very well managed and low risk, but five of them simultaneously is a lot, so we have to wait to see how we go.”
Shoppers at Ashgrove Woolworths. Picture: David ClarkSource:News Corp Australia
Queensland restrictions
Stay-at-home orders are now in place for southeast Queensland, Townsville, Palm Island and Magnetic Island until 6pm Friday.
The 11 southeast Queensland local government areas affected are Noosa, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Redlands, Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Scenic Rim, Lockyer Valley and Somerset.
The orders will remain in place for an additional 24 hours, until 6pm Saturday, for Brisbane and Moreton Bay.
People in those areas can only leave their home for four “essential reasons”:
- To buy essentials such as groceries or medications
- Work or study if you can’t do either from home
- Exercise in your local area
- Healthcare or to provide help, care or support
Other restrictions will remain in place for another two weeks, until 6pm on Friday, July 16.
The restrictions apply to Townsville, Palm Island, Ipswich, Logan, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Gold Coast:
- Residents must carry a mask at all times outside the home and wear them indoors or if social distancing isn’t possible
- You must be seated to drink or eat in cafes and restaurants
- Businesses and venues must return to one person per four square metres inside and one person per two square metres outdoors
- Smaller venues up to 200 square metres are allowed one person per two square metres up to a maximum of 50 people
- Private gatherings are restricted to 30 people
- Up to 100 people can attend weddings and funerals
- Only 20 people can dance at weddings
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