Quarantine requirements for close contacts and unvaccinated international arrivals in Queensland (QLD) will be dropped from 6 p.m. on April 28, bringing the Australian state into line with New South Wales and Victoria.
Making the announcement on Friday, acting premier Steven Miles said the close contact isolation restrictions have been impacting businesses, schools, and the health system.
“It'll allow us to get more people back to work,” he said. “There will still be some requirements on those close contacts ... but this is great news, it’s another step out of this pandemic.”
Asymptomatic close contacts will still need to return a negative test every second day from the day they became a close contact, wear a mask when they leave home and are in an indoor setting, and must not visit vulnerable settings during the seven-day period following close contact with a positive COVID-19 case.
Previously, being a close contact meant a person immediately needed to self-isolate at home or other suitable accommodation for seven days from the date they last had contact with the positive case. If they lived with the positive case, their isolation period would be the same as the person with the virus.
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said that quarantine and isolation have played an important role in avoiding a Delta outbreak and slowing the spread of Omicron, but now is the time to take that next step.
She cited steady numbers of hospitalisations and high vaccination rates as reasons for the removal of the quarantine measure.
“Of course, we still encourage people who can work from home who are close contacts to do so over those seven days,” she said.
Meanwhile, unvaccinated international arrivals to QLD will no longer need to quarantine in government-nominated accommodation for 14 days, but rather just return a negative test within 24 hours of arrival and test further if they develop symptoms.
“This will come into effect at the same time, 6 p.m. next Thursday, which is two days before NSW and Victoria,” D'Ath said.
“But it is important that every state along the east coast of Australia will have the same rules for unvaccinated international arrivals, making it very easy for international arrivals to fly into any one of these states, including QLD, and to move around and have consistency with those rules.”
Chief Health Officer John Gerrard noted that for most of 2020 and 2021, the majority of COVID-19 cases in QLD were overseas arrivals, but now that the virus is widespread in the QLD community, the risk posed by them is minimal.
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