Queensland Covid lockdown EXTENDED after double-digit spike
Queensland has extended its Covid lockdown after announcing 13 new local cases on Monday.
The 11 LGAs in southeast Queensland placed into lockdown on Saturday will remain that way until 4pm on Sunday August 8, Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles announced.
Those areas are Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim.
Residents in affected areas can only leave home for essential work, study or child care, to exercise, buy food and supplies, and receive health care, including being tested for Covid-19 or vaccinated.
Non-essential travel must be within 10 kilometres of residences and everyone must wear a mask when outside their home.
"For it to work, for us to come out of this at the weekend, we need absolutely everyone in those LGAs to stay at home if they can," Mr Miles said.
"It is absolutely critical that people only leave their homes for the four reasons. There's too many cars on the road in Brisbane at the moment. Too many people out and about."
The 13 new local cases are joined by two Covid cases found in overseas arrivals, bringing Monday's total to 15.
Out of the 15, 10 are under the age of 10, one is aged between 10 and 19, one is in their 20s and another is in their 30s.
Seven of the local cases are students at Ironside State School.
Five are household members or family contacts linked to Ironside, Mr Miles said. One case is linked to a confirmed case from a Karate school that trains at Ironside.
Queensland's Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young said mystery still surrounds the source of the outbreak.
“I don’t know where the missing link is,” she said, explaining that the outbreak appears to have come from two people with Delta who arrived from overseas on June 29.
“Subsequently, those two people were found to have the Delta variant with a particular whole genome sequence, and now this outbreak, 29 additional people later, are all clustering with those two,” she said.
'Wake up to yourself Queensland'
Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski has pleaded with Queenslanders to “wake up to yourself” after officers were forced to shut down an anti-lockdown protest on Monday morning and hand out numerous infringements.
“It's quite regrettable for us that we have to be out policing a protest this morning when we're in lockdown,” he said.
“My message to those people that are tying up hundreds of police that could be doing other things is - go home.”
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said police handed out 205 masks on Sunday to those who were not carrying one and responded to 116 calls for service after people called in concerned about community behaviour.
In the last 24 hours, 29 penalty infringement notices were handed out —- 18 of which were people who were out during lockdown for no valid reason.
Police also had to shut down a party at a home.
“For those that think that what they want to do is more important than the broader community - wake up to yourself!” Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said.
Woman with Covid boarded flight in Brisbane
Health authorities are racing to track down the close contacts of a Covid case who flew from Brisbane to Rockhampton late last week.
The woman was an external contractor at the Rookwood Weir project west of Rockhampton and tested positive on July 31.
It's believed she was infectious when she took a Qantas flight from Brisbane to Rockhampton on July 28 and a return flight on July 30.
Authorities are contacting people who were on QF2362 at 8.30am on July 28 and QF2365 at 6.40pm on 30 July.
They are also urgently testing workers at the Weir work camp, who are in their rooms for 14 days' quarantine, while on site work has been called off, and other workers who were at the site have been contacted and told to isolate.
More than 80 Covid exposure sites listed
There are more than 80 exposure sites linked to the outbreak, with about 20 new sites of concern listed on Sunday.
New locations include sites in Pullenvale, Moggill, St Lucia, Spring Hill, South Brisbane, Sunnybank, Bellbowrie and Wilston, as well as bus routes 28 and 411.
For all Covid exposure sites in Queensland, click here.
With AAP
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