Queensland recorded four new community cases as Cairns enters its first day of a three-day snap lockdown and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk warned the state may ‘go harder’ on border restrictions with NSW.
The Cairns area will remain in lockdown until Wednesday, 4pm, after it was discovered an unvaccinated taxi driver had been infectious in the Cairns community for 10 days.
In response to comments by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian that restrictions in her state may be eased as vaccination rates increased, Ms Palaszczuk warned that if necessary Queensland would ‘go harder’ in enforcing border restrictions with its southern neighbour.
‘We are absolutely concerned about what is happening in New South Wales,’ she said.
‘The further north the virus travels is alarming for us so we’ll be watching that incredibly carefully.’
‘We already have those border patrols and those border controls in place at present. But if we have to go harder, we will.’
Ms Palaszczuk said the new case in Cairns was linked to the reef pilot who tested positive in Cairns last week.
‘The marine pilot actually travelled in that person’s taxi,’ she said.
‘A lot of contact tracing is now happening, of course, with those exposure sites but it is great to know that linkage has been done.’
Chief health officer Jeannette Young said it appeared the taxi driver drove the marine pilot from his home to the airport while the latter was infectious.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Queensland may increase border restrictions with NSW as a result of a new case identified in Byron Bay
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young announced yesterday a three-day lockdown for the Cairns area after it was discovered an unvaccinated taxi driver had been infectious in the community for 10 days
People in Brisbane are seen returning to work on Monday morning after south-east Queensland came out of a seven-day lockdown on Sunday afternoon
The four new community cases were linked to the original Indooroopilly cluster and were all in-home quarantine during their infectious period.
One is a staff member at the Ironside State school, another is a parent of a child attending that school and a third is a household contact of a student at Ironside.
A fourth case is a household contact of a Brisbane Boys’ Grammar School student.
A further case was detected in hotel quarantine.
A positive case on the Gold Coast reported over the weekend remained under investigation, with an exposure site named as Woolworths at Mudgeeraba.
The Premier also announced the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre would be opened as a mass vaccination centre from this Wednesday.
The opening of the new centre precedes the arrival of extra Pfizer doses in Queensland in the next two weeks, brought forward from September to August.
Ms Palaszczuk announced the centre would be open from 8.30am until 4.30pm each day and asked people between 16 and 59 to register on the Queensland Health website as the venue was not a walk-in facility.
‘We’ll start on Wednesday with about 1,000 to 1,500 vaccines a day,’ Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said.
‘When we get the extra vaccine, due on Friday, we hope to be doing 3,000 a day by the weekend.’
Dr Young said she hoped three days in lockdown for Cairns and Yarrabah would be enough to evaluate the risk of infections spreading.
“We all know that once the virus has got out, we can’t put it back. So we’ve got to go really early,” Dr Young said on Sunday.
A number of exposure sites were announced in Cairns on Sunday afternoon, including Brothers Leagues Club, Cairns 24-Hour Medical Centre on Grafton St and a OML pathology at Cairns Day Surgery.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she had faith in the Cairns community to follow the rules.
“I need you to stay at home, minimise your movements, let’s test, test and test as much as we possibly can, and then we can evaluate that over the next three days to see if there are any more cases out there,” the premier said.
Ms Palaszczuk re-emerged yesterday after two weeks of hotel quarantine following her visit to Tokyo as part of the successful Brisbane 2032 Olympics bid.
Seven of the nine new cases announced on Sunday were linked to the Indooroopilly cluster centred on schools in western Brisbane.
A girl in Cairns undergoes a Covid-19 test at a testing station set up on the Cairns Esplanade in front of Cairns Base Hospital on Sunday
Health workers conducts a Covid-19 test at a drive-through facility at Woree in Cairns on Sunday
People shop for fresh produce at Rusty’s Markets in Cairns, Sunday, as the area entered a snap three-day lockdown on Sunday evening
Eleven local government areas in the state’s southeast emerged from an eight-day lockdown on Sunday.
Many rules have been relaxed in Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, Noosa, Somerset, the Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim.
Residents are still subject to a number of restrictions until at least August 22 including mandatory mask-wearing, a limit of ten visitors to a home and a one person per four square metre rule. Up to ten visitors can now gather in public spaces.
Weddings and funerals will be limited to 20 guests and no community sport will be allowed for the next two weeks.
Schools will reopen but all high school students must wear masks at school and travelling to and from school. All staff must also wear masks and no inter-school sport is allowed.
More than 12,000 people remain in home quarantine, mostly in Brisbane.
LATEST CAIRNS EXPOSURE SITES
The locations listed below are close contact exposure sites:
Raintrees Shopping Centre – Cnr Alfred & Koch Streets Manunda, Raintrees Tavern: 1.55pm – 4.30pm, Tuesday, August 3, 3.30pm – 4.30pm, Thursday, August 5; Woolworths Raintrees, 2.30pm – 3.30pm, Wednesday, August 4
Café China on Mulgrave Road, 79 Mulgrave Road, Parramatta Park, 11.40am – 12.40pm, Thursday, August 5
Brothers Leagues Club – Gaming Lounge, 99-107 Anderson Street, Manunda 3pm – 5pm, Thursday, August 5
The Cairns 24 Hour Medical Centre – Waiting Room, 156 Grafton Street (Cnr Florence & Grafton Streets) Cairns City, 3pm – 4.15pm, Friday, August 6
QML Pathology, Cairns Day Surgery (Cnr Florence & Grafton Streets), Cairns City – 4.15pm 5.30pm, Friday, August 6
