Greater Brisbane will enter a hard lockdown from 6pm on Friday after a cleaner at a quarantine hotel was diagnosed with the highly contagious UK variant of COVID-19.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Residents in the council areas of Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay and Redlands will be required to stay at home until 6pm Monday except for essential work, exercise, essential shopping and to access healthcare or to look after the vulnerable.
Masks will also be mandated for people leaving home in the Greater Brisbane area aside from children under 12.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the state had decided "to go hard and go early" to contain potential spread of the virus.
"If we do not do this now it could end up being a 30 day lockdown," she said.
"I know this is going to be tough on businesses over the next few days, but I'm thinking about your long term futures as well," Ms Palaszczuk said.
Cafes, pubs and restaurants will be open only for take-away service.
Funerals will be restricted to 20 guests and weddings restricted to 10 guests.
There is a limit of two visitors in homes and people are allowed to exercise with one other.
People can enter Brisbane during the lockdown period but are bound by the same restrictions.
Ms Palaszczuk said she had declared Greater Brisbane a hotspot ahead of Friday's National Cabinet meeting.
People in Greater Brisbane who were planning a vacation have been asked to delay travel.
"I'm so sorry but you will not be able to go, or you will have to reschedule until Tuesday," she said.
The state recorded nine new COVID-19 cases overnight, all of which are in hotel quarantine.
The cleaner is Australia's first case of the more infectious strain of the coronavirus outside of returned overseas travellers in quarantine.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the situation in Queensland was concerning.
"We do know that we've had cases of the UK variant in our hotel quarantine system," he told ABC RN on Friday.
"And we do know sometimes with a very complex system which relies on humans, mistakes can happen. That apparently is the case here."
The hotel cleaner's infection ended almost four months of zero locally acquired cases in Queensland.
She visited several locations while potentially infectious and contact tracers are tracking her movements.
The woman travelled on a train from Altandi station to Roma Street station at 7am on January 2, then returned on the 4pm service the same day.
She also visited Woolworths at the Calamvale Central Shopping Centre from 11am to 12pm on Sunday 3 January.
She was at Coles in Sunnybank Hills for 30 minutes from 7.30am on Tuesday 5 January and a newsagent at Sunnybank Hills Shopping Town from 8am to 8.15am on the same day.
Residents of Algester, Sunnybank Hills and Calamvale who have symptoms of the infection are especially urged to get tested as soon as possible.
Australian Associated Press
