Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk provides latest on COVID-19 in Queensland
More than one million Queensland border passes have been issued since the system was introduced less than a month ago, but Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she won’t hesitate to slam the border shut if more NSW outbreaks occur.
QLD News
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More than one million Queensland border passes have been issued since the system was introduced less than a month ago, highlighting the huge volume of traffic approaching Queensland from southern states.
Since July 10, when the border opened to all states bar Victoria, 2200 people have been refused entry into Queensland.
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About a third of those turnarounds happened at Gold Coast border checkpoints.
The Gold Coast’s top cop, Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler, said police would be “ready at a moment’s notice” if Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made a hardline call to shut the border entirely, as Victoria and NSW struggled to keep coronavirus outbreaks under control.
Earlier, Ms Palaszczuk said Queensland had again recorded no new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, as the state’s tough border restrictions tighten to ban more than 600,000 Sydney residents.
Ms Palaszczuk said the Government would not hesitate to slam the border shut to further hot spots if there is more community transmission interstate.
She said she would only act on the advice of Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young.
“Every single day we are monitoring what is happening in NSW,” she said.
It comes as the Sydney local government area of Fairfield is declared a coronavirus hot spot from today.
Ms Palaszczuk thanked those working at the state’s border with NSW where she said there had been considerable delays.
“There will be delays at the border, there is nothing I can do about that. There will be delays because we are protecting Queenslanders.”
Ms Palaszczuk said if the state wanted to keep its restrictions eased, Queenslanders will need to keep up with the social distancing and hand washing.
“Complacency is our enemy,” she said.
“Anything can happen at any time.”
Queensland currently has five active cases with 505,628 tests conducted.