Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announces no new Covid cases as relocations to Qld paused

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a two-week pause on relocations to Queensland from interstate hotspots as the state’s quarantine hotels reach capacity. It comes after no new Covid cases.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a two-week pause on relocations to Queensland as the state’s quarantine hotels reached capacity.

It comes as the state records no new Covid cases and two truck drivers who tested positive on Tuesday being classified as false positives.

Starting from 12pm Wednesday, Queensland is pausing allowing people to relocate from Covid-19 hotspots for two weeks

Anyone who was not already on a flight at the time of the announcement would have to re-apply for a pass and then wait to be allocated a time period to relocate to Queensland.

This will not include people accessing medical treatment or other special circumstances including bereavement matters.

Ms Palaszczuk said the state’s hotel quarantine system was under pressure.

“We are really concerned about the pressure that the hotel quarantine system is putting on our resources,” she said.

“We do not have any room at the moment.

“Queensland is being loved to death.”

The Premier said this was becoming a risk for the state.

Ms Palaszczuk said new rules would mean that people would need to book a room in a hotel quarantine before they travelled to Queensland.

“We are scrambling for hotels,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Dan Peled

The Premier said Queensland had been overwhelmed by new arrivals from interstate hotspots Victoria, NSW and the ACT.

“While we have allowed genuine relocations for work and other purposes, it has overwhelmed our hotels and it has to be stopped for at least the next fortnight,” she said.

As of yesterday, 5114 were in 22 quarantine hotels – 3257 from interstate and 1857 from overseas.

Between August 9-20, 2750 people were granted border passes to relocate to Queensland and nearly 2000 of those were in a single week.

New arrivals and Queensland residents will now need to reapply for a ‘right of entry’.

The Premier said Queensland was also helping the Commonwealth with arrivals from Afghanistan.

“We want to make sure the system is running smoothly,” she said.

She said the proposal was put to her by police and Queensland Health because their resources were so stretched and she accepted it.

Ms Palaszczuk said people would still be able to come home, but would need to “pause for two weeks”.

“We’ve just got to do it in an orderly fashion,” she said.

Relocations to Queensland have been paused for two weeks as the state’s hotel quarantines reach capacity. Picture: Brad Fleet

Ms Palaszczuk said the new system would be set up in the next few days.

She ruled out considering home quarantine for now, but said national cabinet would look at a trial being done now in South Australia.

Asked whether parts of Queensland would go into lockdown if there were one or two cases, Ms Palaszczuk said “it depends” on the circumstances.

She said she would always follow Dr Young’s advice.

Asked whether the recent Indooroopilly cluster proved that home quarantine worked, Ms Palaszczuk said: “We’re working through those issues.”

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the pressure on hotels was “simply unsustainable”.

“So we have so far been able to accommodate them and I appreciate this is a major inconvenience, but our first priority must be keeping Queenslanders safe,” she said.

Ms D’Ath said the government had to give little notice for this change because they didn’t want to “create a perverse incentive” for people to rush into Queensland.

“We have to do this otherwise there’d be a whole of people racing to the airport,” she said.

That would have put even further pressure on authorities and hotels, she said.

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said while Queensland was not in an outbreak at the moment, young people could still speak to their GP about getting Astra Zeneca as authorities push for a faster vaccination uptake.

Dr Young said it was becoming unrealistic to stand up more and more hotels each day.

She said it was too difficult to train people in such a quick turnaround for them to work in hotel quarantine and the risk was increasing.

“It was becoming unsustainable,” she said.

Originally published as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announces no new Covid cases as relocations to Qld paused