Six-week pseudo lockdown: Brace now for ‘short, sharp wave’

Queenslanders have been urged to bunker down for the next six weeks to ride out a ‘short, sharp’ Covid wave of cases expected in January and February. This is what you need to know.

Queenslanders have been told to stay home in a pseudo lockdown to slow the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the community.

It came as the Premier issued an urgent plea for all to work from home immediately as proposals are drawn up to delay the return of primary and secondary schools if it coincides with the “short, sharp wave” of cases expected in late January or February.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was “not a big ask” and urged people to limit their movements.

The Queensland Disaster Management Group will meet next week to reconsider planning that was done for a Delta wave, but needs to be reconsidered in light of Omicron.

Better modelling will occur once authorities can finally gauge the true state of the Covid emergency gripping the state this weekend, through a new system to record positive rapid antigen tests being taken in the community.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk during a press conference in Brisbane on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

There were 10,953 cases announced on Friday, with 327 people in hospital and 14 in ICU.

A phone line will be launched Saturday to allow people to phone in their positive RAT result to be added to official figures, with plans to move that to an online system.

But even as Ms Palaszczuk warned of “very tough times ahead”, she resisted following the NSW Government in reintroducing restrictions around drinking, dancing and singing.

She instead appealed to people to exercise their own common sense.

She said pregnant women, the immunocompromised and elderly should limit their movements, and employers should immediately reinstate work-from-home arrangements.

“I’ve said very clearly on a number of occasions to our most vulnerable in our community: Now is not the time to be going out socialising,” she said.

“This is going to be a short, sharp wave.

“We’re asking you to minimise your going out for, essentially, the next six weeks.

“That’s not a big ask when you’ve seen countries around the world that have endured up to a year of lockdown.”

Chief health officer Dr John Gerrard said he wanted anyone over the age of 60 to heed that advice and avoid crowded settings.

Dr Gerrard revealed he had been “agonising” over whether there was a need to bring back density limits but they would need to be “quite draconian” and would really only impact people in their 20s and 30s, among which there were already widespread cases.

“I have not given advice to the government to reimpose density limits based on information I’m getting speaking to a number of epidemiologists,” Dr Gerrard said.

“Now, I acknowledge this is controversial and others would not agree with this but we are not going to stop this virus.”

“This is a very difficult time for Queensland at the moment, probably the likes that we haven’t seen before,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“It is going to really test the resilience of this state … And I just want to assure the public that we are working on this every single day and looking at the requirements that are needed.”

University of Queensland Associate Professor Dr Paul Griffin said tactics needed to “evolve to keep the state functional and that could mean the close contact rules being wound back or scrapped all together”.

“We may also look at allowing people back into the workplace based on symptoms rather than on a negative test,” he said.

“We are already seeing so many sectors hard hit with staff isolating with Covid or as close contacts – retail, logistics, transport and healthcare.

“In the end we can’t let things become non-functional,” he said.

“The public health experts will change the rules as we go through this.”

Originally published as Six-week pseudo lockdown: Brace now for ‘short, sharp wave’