Millions count on Covid lockdown release decision

About six million Australians are set to be released from lockdown on Friday after no widespread transmission of Covid-19 was detected in WA, Queensland or the NT.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Getty Images

About six million Australians are set to be released from lockdown on Friday after no widespread transmission of Covid-19 was detected in Western Australia, Queensland or the Northern Territory.

Authorities in the three jurisdictions imposed hard lockdown orders earlier this week as cases of the more virulent Delta strain were detected in the community.

When the lockdowns lift, other restrictions were expected to remain including mask wearing and density rules.

No local cases were detected in WA on Thursday, which Premier Mark McGowan said was “amazingly encouraging”, but stressed the final decision would hinge on whether any further infections are identified by Friday morning.

The state called a four-day lockdown on Monday night after three cases of the Delta strain were detected in Perth’s northern suburbs. A fourth case – a man who had visited a gym linked to two of the other three infections – was detected on Wednesday.

School holidays are due to begin in WA this weekend, so holiday-makers and businesses will have a small window to adjust their plans and prepare for any loosening of restrictions.

“We will make a final decision on that based upon testing numbers and the outcomes overnight,” Mr McGowan said.

All four cases in Perth’s latest outbreak were linked to exposure sites identified when the original case was identified on Sunday.

Queensland was thrust into its own three-day shutdown on Tuesday after an unvaccinated hospital receptionist tested positive to the Delta strain.

Fears of a mass outbreak were heightened because the woman was contagious in the community for 10 days before fronting up for testing.

Miraculously only one case has been linked back to the Covid breach, when her younger brother tested positive on Tuesday. Three other household members have tested negative.

Chief health officer Jeannette Young said it gave her “a lot of confidence” that the other family members had not tested ­positive but flagged health authorities were dealing with five separate clusters.

“Each incident in and of itself, I’m pretty confident about. They’re all been very well managed.

“But five of them simultaneously is a lot so we’ll just have to wait and see how we go.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said a decision would be made on Friday morning.

“Fingers crossed that we will have low numbers tomorrow and we’ll be able to lift the lockdown.”

Two local cases were reported on Thursday, including a woman in her 30s who worked at the Qatar Airways check-in desk at Brisbane airport. She was contagious since June 25. The other new case was linked to the Portuguese restaurant cluster but was isolating for their entire infectious period.

Greater Darwin’s lockdown, triggered by a Queensland hotel quarantine blunder, was also on track to lift on Friday.

A mine worker is believed to have caught the highly transmissible Delta variant after spending nine hours in the Novotel Hotel at Brisbane Airport alongside overseas arrivals on June 18.

The Northern Territory recorded one new case on Thursday sourced to the miner.