Brisbane virus measures lift after another day without community transmission
The lockdown was imposed after a doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital contracted the virus.
Visitor restrictions at hospitals, aged care facilities and disability providers in Greater Brisbane will be lifted from midday after another day of zero community transmission of coronavirus.
The restrictions were imposed after a doctor at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital tested positive to COVID-19 last Friday.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said “99 per cent” of the doctor’s 650 contacts had since returned negative tests.
“This is fantastic news and I know there’s a lot of people who need to go and see their loved ones,” she said.
“From 12 noon today you’re free to go and do that.”
Genomic sequencing has linked the doctor’s case with returned travellers who were both staying on the same floor at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, a quarantine hotel in Brisbane’s Spring Hill.
Ms Palaszczuk said there was no evidence of “any failure” of the Grand Chancellor Hotel and it would resume taking in quarantine arrivals.
“The CCTV, I’m advised, has found no breaches whatsoever,” she said.
“We do know this is a highly infectious strain.”
Queensland had nine new cases of COVID-19 in hotel quarantine overnight, six of them from Papua New Guinea.
More than 8200 tests have been conducted in the past 24 hours, and more than 32,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered so far.
Ms Palaszczuk said the vaccination program was going “very well” in the Torres Strait Islands – 159 people have been vaccinated in the region so far, and vaccinations will be rolled out to more islands next week.
“Everyone has been fantastic, everyone has been cooperating,” she said.
“[Chief health officer] Dr Young is in constant contact with our federal counterparts about how we will go about working together to vaccinate those provinces [in PNG] close to the Torres Strait.”