Brisbane Lockdown Ends at 6PM but ‘Not out of the Woods Yet’

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk looks on at a press conference at Parliament house in Brisbane, Australia, on April 1, 2021.(Jono Searle/Getty Images)

The Brisbane and Moreton Bay lockdown measures will end at 6 p.m. on Saturday, with restrictions remaining in place in certain local government areas until July 16.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Saturday morning thanked residents for their co-operation in locking down for an extra day, but she stressed “we are not out of the woods yet.”

While restrictions remain in place for certain local government areas the premier urged businesses not to allow people into their premises unless they have checked in with a phone app as part of the state’s CCP virus restrictions.

“I’m asking businesses: Please do not allow people into your businesses unless they have checked in,” Palaszcuk told reporters on Saturday morning. “If it means putting a staff member in to make sure people have checked in; this is vital for our contact tracers.”

Queensland has mandated since May that hospitality businesses in the state must use the government’s Check-in QLD app for this purpose, however, it was not mandatory for customers to use the app.

A mask mandate is part of the remaining restrictions which were put in place following a moderate cluster of both the Alpha and Delta strains of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, in Queensland’s southeast region and in Townsville in the state’s north.

Queensland CCP Virus Case Update

Queensland on Saturday reported five new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the state, bringing the state’s total active case number to 47.

Health authorities are most concerned about three out of the five new locally acquired infections.

One of the cases was a woman in her 50s from Everton Park who works at Prince Charles Hospital and had received her first dose of vaccinations against the CCP virus. She had worked one shift at the hospital while infectious.

“She does not work in the COVID ward but we of course are confirming whether she had a reason to go into that ward for any reason,” Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said.

“She has received the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine and was due in the next few weeks to get the second dose.”

The second new case was a man in his 50s who works at Brisbane’s domestic airport as a baggage handler and is linked to the Portuguese restaurant cluster. The man lives in Carindale but is not a known contact to other cases of transmission that occurred in that suburb.

His case was detected during routine testing of 700 airport staff, Young said, with genome sequencing underway to uncover where the man acquired the virus.

Palaszczuk said health authorities were “very closely monitoring” these new cases.

Noosa Warning

Palaszczuk also urged people in Noosa to be on alert after a 29-year-old Brisbane man who tested positive for the CCP virus travelled to Eumundi, Sunshine Beach, Kennilworth, and Doonan on the Sunshine Coast.

The man is related to a previous case that was linked to the Carindale Greek community centre. He and his partner also visited a restaurant at Sunshine Beach, but the premier had no further details at that time.

“We have some slight concerns there about those areas but I know that people around that area will be thinking very carefully about, whether they live in those areas or work in those areas, and if you have any symptoms whatsoever, please come forward and get tested,” Palaszcuk said.