Lockdown to lift across south-east Qld as Cairns enters three-day lockdown

Locked-down south-east Queensland residents will be relieved from stay-at-home orders at 4pm after nine new local COVID-19 cases were reported on Sunday, one sparking new concerns in the state’s far north.

Restrictions including mask wearing will remain for another two weeks for the 11 south-east Queensland local government areas, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.

Seven of the nine new local cases have been linked to the Indooroopilly school cluster, with another case under investigation on the Gold Coast, and one of particular concern to authorities in a Cairns taxi driver.

As a result of the Cairns case – a driver who had been infectious in the community for 10 days – the Cairns and Yarrabah council areas will go into a three-day lockdown from 4pm on Sunday.

Pop-up testing clinics will be established in the Cairns region, while hours at existing sites will be extended, as authorities urge anyone with symptoms to come forward.

A similar request has been made for Gold Coast residents and remains for the south-east, and the entire state.

Annastacia Palaszczuk – herself out of quarantine on Sunday – announces the 4pm lifting of south-east Queensland’s lockdown.Credit: Matt Dennien

The government also flagged fresh support for businesses in the Cairns region.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said given the risk posed by the Cairns taxi driver, she could not afford to wait another 24 hours before declaring a lockdown.

The man, who worked between July 31 and August 4, also attended a number of locations to be added to the state’s exposure site list, including the Brothers Leagues Club.

Authorities were still awaiting genomic sequencing to determine the source of his infection, with several family members also unwell, but so far testing negative.

A marine pilot tested positive to the Delta variant in the region last week without known links to other cases in the state.

In the south-east, high testing rates and broad compliance with the most severe lockdown since the pandemic began meant restrictions could begin to ease from Sunday afternoon.

“I’m very proud of the work that everybody has done,” Ms Palaszczuk said at her first press conference since being released from hotel quarantine on Sunday morning after her recent trip to Tokyo. “It is because of your hard work that we are in this position today.”

To enable the lockdown to lift, rules will remain in place in the Brisbane, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Logan, Moreton Bay, Noosa, Redland, Scenic Rim, Somerset and Sunshine Coast local government areas.

Mandatory mask wearing will continue for residents whenever they leave their homes, except while eating and drinking, or exercising with their household or one other person.

Schools other than those under quarantine orders as a result of the outbreak will reopen, with all staff and high school students to also wear masks.

All school staff have also been added to the priority list for vaccinations, while small masks have been sourced by the Education Department for any primary school students wishing to wear them.

Visitors to households across the region will be capped at 10 – including the home’s residents – with only 20 allowed at weddings and funerals, and people urged not to travel beyond the 11 local government areas into regional Queensland.

Businesses and venues will be capped at one person per four square metres, or 50 per cent of seated and ticketed capacity. All community sport in the region is also banned.

An initial three-day lockdown was ordered last Saturday, July 31, after six local cases were reported – all linked to a 17-year-old Indooroopilly State High School student.

After cases mounted into Monday, the planned end to the lockdown was pushed back from 4pm on Tuesday to Sunday to give authorities time to get ahead of the largest outbreak faced by the state since the first wave.

Sunday’s new cases drove the Indooroopilly cluster to 109, the majority aged 19 or younger, in Australia’s first major Delta outbreak driven by children.

About half of those infected have been students at a growing list of schools across the inner-west, with a number of teachers also testing positive.

More than 15,000 close contacts of the positive cases have been identified, with hundreds of households linked to the schools and more than 10,000 people — including about 400 health workers — to remain in home quarantine.

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