Greater Brisbane will enter a three-day lockdown from 5pm today after health authorities confirmed four new locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases.
Queensland’s Chief Health Officer, Jeannette Young said Brisbane’s growing cluster of seven cases of the UK variant of the virus was “significant”.
Two of the four new cases are colleagues of a 26-year-old man from Stafford in Brisbane’s north who tested positive to coronavirus last Thursday.
One is a nurse who worked in the COIVD-19 ward at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Queensland Health says the woman has been on leave but had not received a COVID-19 vaccination.
The fourth new cases is the nurse’s sister.
Under the new lockdown, people will only be allowed to leave their homes for essential reasons like grocery shopping, medical care and work.
Schools in the region will be closed and masks will be mandatory outside of the home.
Authorities say one of the newly acquired cases visited Gladstone between March 25 and 28.
NSW Health authorities are also on alert, after the infected nurse and her sister confirmed they had visited Byron Bay while contagious. The pair attended a number of venues in the Byron region, including the popular Byron Beach Hotel and The Farm.
“This is going to be part of the Australian way of life until everyone is vaccinated,” Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk said this morning.
“By today declaring that greater Brisbane a hotspot, I’m asking all other state and territory leaders to do exactly the same and hopefully, fingers crossed, like our last three-day lockdown, it will give our contract tracers the opportunity to get on top of things.”
Dr Young said anyone who had been in the Brisbane region since March 20 should follow the same protocols as local residents.
