Victoria declares Greater Brisbane a red zone as lockdown looms

Brisbane has gone into a snap, three-day lockdown and Victorians who travel to the city will have to self-isolate for two weeks after they return home amid a growing COVID-19 outbreak.

Victoria declared the Queensland capital a red zone under the state’s travel permit system on Monday after four new cases of coronavirus in the community were recorded.

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton.Credit: Eddie Jim

Byron Bay in NSW and Gladstone in central Queensland were declared orange zones on Monday evening, meaning anyone in Victoria who was there after March 26 must isolate, get a coronavirus test within 72 hours, and stay isolating until they receive a negative result.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the lockdown of Greater Brisbane on Monday as the state tried to contain an outbreak that has also caused alarm in NSW.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said on Monday that the state now had “significant community transmission”.

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton declared the red zone classification – which applies to Greater Brisbane, including the City of Brisbane, the City of Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay Region and Redlands City – on Monday afternoon.

Victorian residents now in Greater Brisbane can apply for a permit to fly back, but will have to return straight home and quarantine for 14 days on their return.

Anyone in Victoria who has been in Greater Brisbane since March 12 must isolate, get a coronavirus test within 72 hours, and stay isolating until they receive a negative result.

While many Victorians will have planned holidays to the state, Professor Sutton said he would discourage them going.

“I understand that people have also booked things in well in advance, some people have paid upfront and and have had multiple cancellations,” Professor Sutton told ABC Melbourne on Monday evening.

“If you’re flying into a regional airport outside Brisbane, it’s not an issue at all as you’ll be going into a green zone. You’ll still need to complete a permit to come back into Victoria.

“But again, we’ve got hundreds of people who’ve been to these exposure sites across Queensland and now into northern NSW, some of those individuals may test positive, and some of them might have been to other areas of Queensland, including in regional Queensland, so you know it’s always a risk, and you just need to play it by ear and make a decision for yourself.

“Popular locations like Noosa and the Gold Coast are, so far, not facing any changes to their status but that could change.

“If there’s information that people have been, you know potentially infectious and in those areas, then we have to make that call as well,” Professor Sutton said.

Two of the four fresh Queensland cases visited Byron Bay while contagious.

Those two cases – a nurse working in a COVID-19 hospital ward and her sister – travelled to Byron Bay before they tested positive for the virus but during their infectious period.

The nurse and her sister visited venues popular with holidaymakers from Victoria, including a hen party at The Farm.

Health authorities are anticipating that several close contacts among the party travelled to Byron from a number of locations and have since returned home.

They visited Byron Beach Hotel on Friday, March 26, between 7.15pm and 8.30pm, and The Farm on Sunday, March 28 between 8am and 9.30am.

Byron area locals told The Age the hen party group stayed in accommodation in Suffolk Park, a popular beachside neighbourhood south of the Byron Bay town centre.

The Brisbane Lions’ game against Collingwood on Thursday night will be shifted to Melbourne and played at Marvel Stadium instead of the Gabba. Most of the Lions players have been in Victoria since they played in Geelong on Friday evening.

The Gold Coast is not in the lockdown area nor the red zone but the Gold Coast Suns will join Brisbane in exile from Queensland and will fly to Adelaide on Tuesday morning, where they will play the Crows on Friday night.

Sydney Swans players and staff were sent also into isolation on Monday night, but the AFL on Monday night was expecting that Sydney, who played in Brisbane on March 20, would be fine to head to Melbourne to play Richmond on Saturday.

Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien supported the decision to declare Brisbane a red zone since there was evidence of community transmission.

“They have had some community transmission up there so that says they haven’t quite put a fence around it yet so I think a lockdown is a sensible way to approach it until Brisbane gets a hold of it,” Mr O’Brien told ABC Melbourne on Monday.

“Hopefully their contact tracing can identify those circles within circles and put a fence around it.

“We are just on the verge of opening up again, we don’t want to see our state go back into lockdown so I support the decision.”

Western Australia has also reintroduced a hard border for travellers arriving from Queensland that will come into effect from midnight.

WA Premier Mark McGowan said Queensland would become a “medium risk” state under WA’s system, which means travel to the state will no longer be permitted except for those with exemptions.

Victoria recorded one new case of COVID-19 in hotel quarantine on Monday, and a Victorian resident identified as a close contact to an exposure site linked to an outbreak in Queensland is awaiting test results.

Monday marked 31 consecutive days with no new local coronavirus cases in Victoria. The new international case, believed to be a member of an international flight crew, is isolating in one of the quarantine hotels that have remained open to flight crews. The new COVID-19 case is the only active case in the state.

The Victorian Health Department on Sunday advised that three Victorians who returned from Brisbane a week ago had been at an Italian restaurant in the suburb of Redcliffe that had been identified as an exposure site by Queensland Health authorities.

All three of the cases, who were travelling together, have already tested negative and will remain in quarantine for 14 days.

Brisbane lockdown

Ms Palaszczuk said on Monday morning that there had been 10 new cases in the Greater Brisbane area overnight. Four of those cases were acquired within the community, taking the current cluster of concern to seven cases.

Under the lockdown rules, residents of greater Brisbane are allowed two visitors to their homes and can leave only for essential reasons. Schools in the area will be closed from Tuesday. However, children of essential workers will still be able to go to school and daycare. Masks will be mandatory indoors, unless people are in their own homes.

One of the new cases was in the central Queensland city of Gladstone for three days while infectious.

When asked whether Gladstone could face similar restrictions to Brisbane, Dr Young said authorities needed to find out what venues were visited to make that call. She said the man was in Gladstone from March 25 to March 28.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Monday he remained confident in Queensland’s ability to contain the outbreak as the federal government decided against declaring a hotspot over the Queensland outbreak.

Mr Hunt said the federal government had authorised asymptomatic testing across the Greater Brisbane area, which was already under way through Commonwealth respiratory clinics. Asymptomatic testing was also being carried out through aged care facilities.

“I have confidence in Queensland’s ability to deal with this outbreak,” Mr Hunt said.

“I think they’re in a strong position to protect Brisbane and Queensland and, thereby, Australia.”

It comes as Victoria continues preparation to begin accepting international air travellers again next Thursday.

The state’s hotel quarantine program for international travellers was suspended in early February after a virus leak that resulted in a five-day, statewide lockdown.

A total of 13,963 tests were processed in Victoria on Sunday.

Rugby club makes run for the border

NRL club Brisbane Broncos will fly to Sydney on Monday and remain outside Queensland until at least the conclusion of their game with South Sydney at Stadium Australia on April 8.

Broncos interim chief executive Neil Monaghan said his side would be based in Sydney while away from home and would fly into Melbourne for their Good Friday game against Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park.

The team’s statement said its return to Brisbane would be decided by how the three-day lockdown and COVID-19 case numbers in Greater Brisbane played out.

With Stuart Layt, Ashleigh McMillan, Lydia Lynch and Chloe Read