Coronavirus as it happened: Greater Brisbane declared a hotspot, to enter lockdown after UK COVID strain found; WA to close border to Queensland

That's where we'll leave our live coverage for tonight. Here are the major developments from today:

• Brisbane residents are in lockdown until at least 6pm Monday and masks are mandatory as of 6pm Friday, in response to the UK virus variant discovered in a hotel quarantine cleaner on Thursday.
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced caps on international arrivals will be halved in NSW, Western Australia and Queensland until February 15
• Overseas travellers must now return a negative COVID-19 test result prior to their departure to Australia, with some exemptions for "extenuating circumstances".
• Masks will also be mandatory in airports and on all international and domestic flights.
• Flight crews will be subject to stricter conditions and testing, while quarantine workers across Australia will be subject to stricter testing requirements.
• NSW recorded four locally acquired cases, with one from the Avalon cluster yet to be linked to a source. Despite NSW Health reservations, the upper northern beaches will exit lockdown at midnight tomorrow.
• Victoria recorded no new cases for a second day, as Premier Daniel Andrews flagged he would make border announcements next week.

You can find the border restrictions currently in place for each state and territory here.

Thanks for joining us. We'll bring you more updates tomorrow.

The first flight from Brisbane to Melbourne to arrive after the 6pm lockdown took effect in Greater Brisbane landed earlier tonight.

As with earlier flights from Brisbane today, passengers were not greeted by authorised officers to inform them of a request to test and isolate until Monday.

Qantas passengers Jen and Dan, with children Pippa and Tilda, arrive in Melbourne from Queensland on Friday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

One passenger, Jess, told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald she was going to organise to be tested as soon as possible and go straight home.

"I know about it because I've been looking at [the Department of Health and Human Safety] all day online but there was no announcement on the plane or anything," she said.

Four more flights are scheduled to land in Melbourne from Brisbane tonight at 9.10pm, 9.15pm, 9.40pm and 11.15pm.

Earlier, one Victorian family - made up of mum Jen, dad Dan and daughters Pippa and Tilda - said they were lucky they happened to be on a flight home from Queensland on Friday night, hours after Greater Brisbane had been declared a national hot spot.

The family, who did not wish to use their surname, had been holidaying in north Queensland near Mackay and only passed through Brisbane airport to transfer to a flight to Melbourne.

They said they were in the dark about whether they were required to be tested and isolate or not.

"We were on the ground [in Brisbane] for like 40 minutes," said Dan."We literally walked from one gate to another," said Jen.

The couple said they were both "very surprised" not to have been met by health authorities in Melbourne.

"We were just told to check our restrictions and it was our responsibility [to stay up to date]," said Jen.

South Australia has changed its advice for people who are arriving, or have arrived, from Brisbane since January 2, ordering them to get tested for COVID-19 immediately and self-isolate before getting further tests.

Anyone who arrived in South Australia who was in Greater Brisbane between Saturday, January 2, and Thursday, January 7, must get a test immediately, and again in five days.

Under the revised advice, issued late on Friday, those people now must isolate after the first test. There is no isolation required after day five test.

Anyone who arrives today (Friday) who has been in Greater Brisbane must get a test immediately and again on day five and day 12.

Those people also must now isolate after the first test. No isolation period is required after day five or day 12 tests

The government's previous advice, announced earlier today, said there was no requirement for people to isolate while they awaited their test results.

People in South Australia also cannot attend any event that has more than 1000 people in attendance, or that is without an approved COVID management plan.

New South Wales residents and visitors who are arriving from, or have recently been in, Brisbane are being ordered to isolate at home to prevent the potential spread of the UK strain of COVID-19 found in Queensland.

NSW Health has changed its advice for people entering the state from the Brisbane area, and those who have arrived since January 2, "to follow similar ‘stay at home’ rules as those being put in place by the Queensland government".

Masks are mandatory for people in Brisbane as of 6pm Friday. Credit: Tertius Pickard

Under a new public health order, issued late on Friday, anyone entering NSW by any mode of transport from the City of Brisbane, City of Ipswich, Lockyer Valley Region, Logan City, Moreton Bay Region, Redland City, Scenic Rim Region, and Somerset Region must go directly to their home or place of accommodation in NSW, and remain there until 6pm on Monday, January 11.

The order applies to anyone who has arrived in NSW from those areas since 12.01am on January 2.

People who have arrived in NSW after transiting through Brisbane Airport will not be subject to the requirements of the order, provided they have not been in the listed areas.

"Once at their home or place of accommodation, Queensland arrivals are allowed to leave only for the purposes of obtaining food or essential shopping, taking exercise, work duties if they cannot be done from home, caring duties or medical care, until 6pm on Monday," NSW Health said in a statement.

"In addition, from 6pm today all people arriving in NSW from Queensland by air must also complete a self-declaration form stating their name, address and where they stayed in Queensland, and dates of arrival and departure.

"Enforcement officers will have the power to require information and identification documentation to assist in checking compliance.

"Anyone who is travelling to NSW from Queensland, or has recently done so, is asked to monitor for even the mildest of symptoms and immediately get tested and isolate if any symptoms develop.

"Once tested, you must remain in isolation until a negative result is received, in line with the normal advice for all people in NSW."

Anyone who has been in the Greater Brisbane area since January 2 is banned visiting people in aged care or entering health care facilities in NSW.

Queensland’s Health Minister Yvette D’Ath has left the door open to an extended Brisbane lockdown beyond a “best-case scenario” without additional cases of community transmission by Monday night.

The greater Brisbane area will enter a three-day lockdown from 6pm to help give health authorities time to trace and test contacts of a hotel quarantine worker who tested positive for the more contagious UK strain of COVID-19 this week.

Ms D’Ath told 4BC Radio on Friday afternoon there were “a lot of hypotheticals” about what came next but the government would assess the results on a rolling basis across the weekend and keep the community informed.

“Best-case scenario is we get to 6pm on Monday and we’ve had no additional community cases,” she said. “And we would love for that to be the result and it means we can start moving out of restrictions much quicker.”

“But of course, [the] worst-case scenario is we’re seeing board community transmission and looking at everything that could be in between.

"Because it’s not just about the numbers of cases, it’s also about whether we can trace every one of those, whether there’s seeding happening which means whoever’s got it’s passing it on to other people in broader areas.”

Ms D’Ath added that none of the worker’s 79 close contacts identified so far had returned a positive test, though results for some were outstanding and people could potentially only test positive later along in their infection.

“And although those initial negatives are … very welcome, we have to remember we’re still within the 14-day window. We’ve had many cases of COVID positive cases where it’s shown up on day 10 and 12, even though they’ve tested negative earlier on.”

Passengers off the most recent flight from Brisbane to Melbourne have disembarked and exited the airport as usual with no interaction at all with health authorities or police.

Many passengers were unaware of the requirement of arrivals from Brisbane to be tested and isolate until Monday until they were told by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Melbourne couple Michael Daffy and Justina Bryant said there was no information given to passengers on what to do when they arrived in Melbourne.

"Not a single thing," said Mr Daffy.

The pair just happened to be on the final flight to Melbourne from Brisbane before a three-day lockdown comes into effect in the Greater Brisbane area for three days at 6pm Queensland time.

They said they were shocked not to be met by any authorities in Melbourne this evening, as they had been in Brisbane when they arrived.

"Flying into Brisbane there were cops there who checked our licences and everything to make sure we hadn't been into Sydney or whatever, but nothing here coming back," Mr Daffy said.

"I got a message from Qantas saying 'Stay up to date', but there's been no information anywhere as to what the up-to-date information actually is," said Ms Bryant.

Another passenger, ABC journalist Lisa Millar, was also on the flight.

She brought forward her return trip to Melbourne this morning when the Queensland situation escalated.

She said she "found it incredible" to have landed in Melbourne without being met by authorities.

"The pilot said, 'when we land we might get some further guidance once we open the doors', so I was expecting then to be told something else but there was nothing," she said.

"We weren't told anything on board about what we should do, the only reason I know what to do is because I was connected to the Wi-Fi and I was reading about it on the way."

With greater Brisbane in lockdown for three days after a cleaner working at a quarantine hotel tested positive for the more virulent British strain of the coronavirus and Greater Sydney also still a "hotspot", states and territories have been reviewing their border arrangements.

You can get the run-down on the current state of play in our explainer here.

Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander, Jeroen Weimar, has advised Victorians not to travel to any parts of Queensland, and warned those in regional and rural parts of the state to plan to head home.

The Palaszczuk government has plunged the greater Brisbane area into a three-day lockdown to give enough time for health authorities to trace all the contacts of a hotel quarantine worker who tested positive to the highly infectious British variant of the coronavirus.

Testing chief Jeroen Weimar giving a COVID-19 update in Melbourne.Credit: Paul Jeffers

Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services has told Victorians who are in greater Brisbane not to try to return home for at least three days, and anyone who has arrived since January 2 is being asked to get tested and isolate until Monday.

Mr Weimar said the DHHS would provide further advice on Monday on the situation in Queensland, but his “personal” advice was for people not to travel to the Sunshine State.

“There’s no closure on other parts of Queensland, I think my advice would be to start making plans to come home unless you plan to be up there for a significant period of time,” Mr Weimar told 3AW Radio Melbourne.

“We just don’t know. And as we’ve seen with New South Wales, we don’t know how this cluster is going to pan out over the coming days and weeks, so if you have a pressing need to be thinking of coming back to Victoria in the coming weeks, my personal advice would be I’d start thinking about making a plan to come home.

“I would not be planning a trip to Queensland at this time.”

Mr Weimar said Victorian health authorities were following the developments in Queensland “hour by hour” before making any further advice, but he did not rule out restrictions being tightened if contact tracers discovered the virus had seeped out of Brisbane.

“One of the positives is that Queensland has jumped on this very quickly, they came out very early this morning to say these are the swift and strong measures we’ve taken and that gives us confidence,” Mr Weimar said.

“We haven’t seen [this variant] out in the community before so this is the first time in Australia where this far more infectious UK strain is out and about, and we need to see what impact will have on the possible contacts this lady may have.”

Police on Queensland's Gold and Sunshine coasts will boost patrols along major roads out of Brisbane and intercept people travelling from the city's wider lockdown area after 6pm tonight, top officials say.

The three-day lockdown for the Brisbane region until 6pm on Monday does not include either coastal areas.

Motorists are experiencing long delays on some outbound roads, particularly northbound on the Bruce Highway, ahead of the evening deadline.

Gold Coast Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler told reporters on Friday afternoon that police would be running a traffic operation on the major thoroughfare similar to one in place earlier in the pandemic.

An increased police presence will help officers intercept vehicles flagged by number plate scanning as being from the Brisbane, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Logan and Ipswich council areas.

“Where we see a Brisbane address or … an address from the greater Brisbane area, we’ll intercept the vehicle and speak to the passengers and driver,” Mr Wheeler said.

“Now is not the time to come from the greater Brisbane area.”

He added police would use communication and compassion but also their discretion to issue fines for those blatantly doing the wrong thing.

“At the end of the day, if we can’t get compliance from any other means it may be a necessary evil I suppose to issue infringement notices,” Mr Wheeler said.

Sunshine Coast District Officer Superintendent Craig Hawkins said there would also be a strong police presence on that region’s main roads and the Bruce Highway, with no road blocks but a system to intercept vehicles to ensure people were not leaving Brisbane.

Queensland health authorities have detected COVID-19 fragments in sewage samples taken from four more sites across the state.

The positive samples, taken from wastewater treatment plants in or servicing South Brisbane, Townsville, Hervey Bay and Maryborough this week, follow more than 20 others across the state since December 14.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said while the detection did not mean there were new cases in the area, they were being treated with “absolute caution” ahead of a three-day lockdown for greater Brisbane from 6pm to try to stop the spread of the highly infectious British strain.

“Given the recent case of community transmission in Brisbane and the regular detection of cases in other states, I am urging anyone who feels unwell in these communities to get tested and isolate,” Dr Young said in a statement.

“If there is a case we are not yet aware of, it is critical we detect it through our testing mechanisms as quickly as possible to contain any potential spread.”