Queensland will declare hotspots in regional NSW from 1am on Thursday as the state works to prevent the Delta strain spreading from locked down areas around Australia.
Anyone who has been in the local government areas of Orange, Blayney and Cabonne will not be allowed to enter Queensland unless they are a returning resident, aside from those with an “essential purpose”.
Residents returning from declared hotspots are required to go into hotel quarantine.
“It is imperative that if you have been to these LGAs, you follow the lockdown rules and don’t travel to Queensland,” Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said in a statement on Wednesday.Â
People arriving from the nominated LGAs before the cut off time have been told to get tested and quarantine at home if they’ve been to an exposure venue.
Queensland recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 two days after a woman from the state’s far north tested positive.
Health authorities conducted 12,876 tests across Queensland overnight, but there were no positive results for COVID-19 by Wednesday morning.
More than 4700 people are in home or hotel quarantine in the state, while two COVID-19 patients are in intensive care.
There had been concerns the relatives and friends of the woman who has COVID-19 – who travelled from the Sunshine Coast to the far north via Brisbane – would test positive.
The state government did not give a COVID-19 update on Wednesday, a decision that drew criticism from Opposition Leader David Crisafulli.
“People are seeing across the country how serious the Delta strain is,” he said.
“To not do a press conference today, on a day when people are apprehensive, I think is a mistake.”
The chief health officer is convinced the woman caught the virus at a Melbourne pub and has the more highly infectious Delta strain.
She returned to Queensland on July 13 and stayed with friends on the Sunshine Coast but two days later was told by Victorian officials that she’d been at a tier-one exposure site – the Young & Jackson Hotel in Melbourne.
The woman presented for testing but returned a negative result, and was active in the community on the Sunshine Coast, and to a lesser degree in far north Queensland, while infectious.
She returned a positive result late Monday night, after flying north to Cairns and then travelling by private vehicle to her family’s home at Mareeba.
The woman, aged in her 20s, was fully vaccinated with Pfizer and wore a mask on public transport on the way from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane airport, and on a Virgin flight VA791 from Brisbane to Cairns on July 16.
Meanwhile, South Australia will also be declared a hotspot from 1am Thursday after the southern state began a seven-day lockdown on Tuesday.
One new overseas acquired case of COVID-19 was detected in hotel quarantine in Queensland on Wednesday.
AAP
