Queenslanders told to rethink NSW travel
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young says it's better for residents to stay in the state.
Queensland has recorded no new community COVID-19 cases overnight, with just one new overseas-acquired case in hotel quarantine.
The lack of new cases is encouraging but Health Minister Yvette D’Ath and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young used their press conference on Saturday to drive home the message about travel to NSW.
“Reconsider your need to travel down into NSW at this time. It is far better if you could stay in Queensland rather than have to manage this complicated process when coming back,” Dr Young said.
Sydney is in a week-long lockdown as authorities work to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has ballooned to 80 cases.
Those who have been in a Sydney hotspot in the council areas of Waverley, Woollahra, City of Sydney or Randwick since June 11 cannot come to Queensland without an exemption.
This means affected people now in Queensland must stay where they are for a week, and can only venture out for essential supplies including food, medical care or care-giving, exercise, and essential work or study that can’t be done at home.
Queensland has pulled up the drawbridge in a bid to keep out the highly infectious Delta COVID-19 variant in Sydney.
Brisbane is battling its own outbreak but it involves the less contagious Alpha variant, which has spread slowly among a cohort of people who’ve already been isolating.
The seven cases linked to the Brisbane cluster can all be traced back to a flight attendant believed to have become infected during hotel quarantine.
She only tested positive after her release and by then had visited several venues including the Portuguese Family Centre in Ellen Grove and the DFO shopping centre at Brisbane Airport last weekend.
A cohort of 36 people who were at the Portuguese centre have been in isolation since very soon after the flight attendant returned a positive result, meaning infections that have surfaced among that group since then have not been active in the community.
Yvette D’Ath commended Queensland businesses and the general public for using the coronavirus check-in app.
More than 60,000 businesses have registered to the app in the last week, and 3.6 million devices in total have downloaded the app, she said.
Queensland is managing 39 active COVID-19 cases. There were 8938 people tested in the 24 hours to Friday evening and 13,895 people got vaccinated.
Elsewhere, travellers from NSW COVID-19 hotspots wanting to cross into Victoria have been sent a stark warning.
Health Minister Martin Foley emphasised the beefed-up police presence on the Victoria-NSW road border on Saturday.
“The message is simple. Don’t come from a NSW red zone to Victoria. To Victorians, do not visit those red zones in NSW,” he told reporters.
-AAP