Flight Centre boss predicts Qld premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to open borders to NSW in weeks
With restrictions to visitors from the ACT to be lifted next Friday, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed Queensland will also begin to increase its intake of international visitors in the coming weeks.
QLD Coronavirus News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD Coronavirus News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Queensland will begin to increase its intake of international visitors in the coming weeks, with the State Government now being able to obtain flight manifests for contact tracing.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said from Monday week, Queensland would take an extra 200 international visitors. The following week it would be an extra 500.
She said health authorities would now be able to source flight manifests when they needed them to contact trace after her government had been painstakingly trying to source them since February.
International arrivals who fly into Queensland once the state increases its intake may undertake quarantine in Cairns and Brisbane.
PM’s border ban: ‘Can’t be any double standards’
Palaszczuk Government may reopen Queensland border to NSW after 14 days of no community transmission
Ms Palaszczuk said it was heartbreaking to hear of people trapped overseas.
“The Prime Minister has agreed to extra Australian Defence Force personnel to help and I thank him for that, this is the way we should be working in co-operation,” she said.
“We’re looking at some hotels in Cairns, we know the Cairns economy has been doing it quite tough and of course we’ll look at our Brisbane-based hotels as well.”
Authorities are also discussing whether arrivals could undergo quarantine in Gladstone.
Ms Palaszczuk didn’t know how many Queenslanders were stuck overseas.
It comes as Health Minister Steven Miles confirmed restrictions on visitors from the ACT would be lifted from September 25.
Asked why the decision to open Queensland’s border to the ACT was made after the Government only recently said a decision would be made at the end of the month, Ms Palaszczuk said Dr Young had raised the issue and said she was comfortable with it.
She said there was no discussion of a national COVID hotspot definition today.
The Government has also not ruled out allowing areas in North Queensland to move to a 2 square metre rule inside venues, but the Premier said it wasn’t being considered at this stage.
It follows a push by Townsville Enterprise advocating for the density restrictions for venues to move to 2sqm instead of the current 4sqm rule.
Queensland recorded no new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours but low-level viral fragments of the virus have been discovered in sewage at the wastewater treatment plant in Pulgul, in Hervey Bay.
It comes as Queensland Health Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said she was “pretty certain” the latest Brisbane Youth Detention Centre-Queensland Correctional Services Academy cluster was linked to the Logan women who allegedly lied about being in Melbourne and tested positive to coronavirus in July.
The case update keeps the state’s tally of known infections since the health crisis began to 1150. Of those, 25 cases remain active.
In the past 24 hours in Queensland, 5751 samples were analysed for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Mr Miles said it was eight days since Queensland had a known infectious case in the community as he announced Queensland would lift border restrictions on the ACT at 1am next Friday.
“This is timed to coincide with the school holidays in the ACT,” he said.
Dr Young said people coming into Queensland from the ACT once the borders were reopened to Canberrans would have to fly in, not drive.
She said if they drove, they would be travelling through NSW, which was still designated a hotspot.
Dr Young said while the most likely cause of the viral fragments found in Hervey Bay sewage was from a case who was no longer infectious, it could also indicate an unidentified positive infection in the local community.
She said Queensland was testing sewage across the state and “we are picking up virus”.
“We know you can shed virus for a long, long time,” Dr Young said.
“It’s really important that across the state that people continue to come forward to get tested.”
The positive result was found in a sample that was taken as part of a joint Queensland Health, University of Queensland and CSIRO pilot research program to test sewage for traces of COVID-19.
Sampling has been taking place at several locations across Queensland since mid-July.
Dr Young said there was minimal risk to people as the viral fragments themselves are not infectious and did not confirm that there were existing cases within the community.
“While the fragments indicate someone is shedding the virus, this can occur for several weeks after the person is no longer infectious and the fragments themselves are not infectious,” Dr Young said.
It comes as one of the country’s leading tourism figures claims Queensland’s borders could open to NSW within weeks.
Flight Centre boss Graham Turner said Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk would be left with no other choice but to open up as other Australian jurisdictions start to ease their border controls.
“I’m pretty sure that the borders – the NSW border with Queensland will open within the next three or four weeks. I don’t know that for sure. But it seems logical,” he told the Today show on Friday morning.
“The only thing that will stop it I believe is a serious outbreak in NSW somewhere.
“There’s got to be a good reason. If there’s a very good reason, safety, health, but I think that’s done and dusted now. That’s over. So I think pragmatism will reign and I’m pretty confident the borders will open because I don’t think there is any choice.”
Mr Turner said the tourism industry was “suffering”, particularly on the Gold Coast and in North Queensland.
“They do all right at the weekends, you know, from the Brisbane traffic, but during the week, it is absolutely dead,” he said.
“Everyone’s suffering. Travel, tourism, airline, airports, it’s a bit of a disaster.”
Mr Turner hoped by March his business would be back to “some level of normality”.
“International will take a little bit longer. But it’s just JobKeeper has been pretty generous, probably too generous in some cases. You know, businesses like ours or airports and airlines, if we get the domestic travel back full-on, we will get back to a break-even situation with a little bit of luck. I think most of the major airlines, Virgin and Qantas, and the airports, will feel the same way.”