Ipswich miner one of two new Covid-19 community cases in Queensland with city, regions in lockdown

The city will be plunged into lockdown after two new community case of Covid-19 were identified, which includes one person from Ipswich.

Southeast Queensland, including Ipswich, has been plunged into a three-day lockdown from Tuesday night.

TWO new community Covid-19 cases, including a miner from Ipswich, has forced southeast Queensland into a snap three-day lockdown.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed Queensland recorded four new cases overnight, which included two acquired overseas and two community cases.

The southeast, which includes Ipswich and the Somerset, Scenic Rim and Lockyer Valley regions, will go into lockdown from 6pm Tuesday until 6pm Friday.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk apologised for the snap three-day lockdown.

One of the new community cases is a miner from Ipswich who is one of 170 FIFO workers from a Northern Territory mine, where a positive case was detected on Saturday, who have dispersed across the state.

Ms Palaszczuk said the positive test result was detected in home quarantine.

Of those 170 mine workers, 114 have been tested with two returning positive results, which includes the Ipswich miner and a case from Bli Bli which was announced on Monday.

These cases are the highly-contagious Delta variant.

“We consider this person to be of low risk,” she said.

A 19-year-old woman from Sandgate who had visited Magnetic Island in Townsville is the other new case announced on Tuesday.

She is a casual worker at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane.

Townsville City, Palm Island and Magnetic Island are also included in the lockdown.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the Ipswich miner returned home and was immediately tested when they arrived.

“We did one test on that miner,” she said.

“At that stage it was equivocal.

“It was really early in their illness and we wouldn’t call that a positive. Then we repeated the test later and at that stage it was definitely positive.

“Which means the first test when they first went into quarantine was very, very early which means I hope that is low risk.”

Everyone who has been in contact with the miner is being contact traced.

Dr Young said the cluster from the Tanami gold mine was a “continuing risk” for Queensland.

“We’re not out of that risk time yet with all of those other miners,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said the decision to go into lockdown once again was taken after two “extensive” meetings on Tuesday morning and the government needed to act fast to address several situations.

She apologised for the lockdown in the middle of school holidays.

“We’ve just got to do this,” she said.

“I don’t want it to be 30 days. These are tough decision.

“I know this is going to be a tough for a lot of families.”

Ms Palaszczuk took aim at the federal government for its lagging vaccine rollout and said she was “absolutely furious” that the Prince Charles Hospital worker had not been vaccinated.

She said the number of people arriving from overseas needed to be capped.

“The overseas arrivals are bringing the virus here,” she said.

“The risk is real and we need to contain the virus. We have a large proportion of our state unvaccinated. The federal government is in charge of supply of that vaccine.”

From 6pm Tuesday, you can only leave your home to buy essentials such as groceries or medication, work or study if you can’t do it from home, exercise in your local area and for healthcare or to provide help, care or support.

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.