Covid 19 coronavirus: Brisbane youth centre focus of new outbreak

Brisbane has confirmed community transmission of Covid 19. Photo / File

Another six Queensland coronavirus cases have been confirmed linked to the Brisbane youth detention centre, prompting authorities to immediately introduce new limits on social gatherings around the city.

Three extra cases have also been diagnosed in crew members on ships, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Saturday.

Revealing the new cases, the state government acted swiftly to immediately limit gatherings in homes and public places with no Covid-safe plan to 10 people.

The restrictions apply to Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Scenic Rim, Moreton Bay and Redlands local government areas. For those in other parts of southeast Queensland that number for gatherings is 30 people.

"What we are concerned about is these people have been out and about in the community," Palaszczuk said.

"We have been planning for this and we have all of our management systems in place."

The premier said additional fever clinics would open across South East Queensland to allow more people to access testing.

"If you have any symptoms whatsoever, we need you to get tested now," she said.

"This is a very important time, especially over the next couple of days, and we do expect there could be even more cases linked to this cluster."

Palaszczuk said she was not concerned by the new cases on offshore ships, and those were being dealt with.

However, the new detention centre cases have sparked concerns the virus may be even more widespread.

They come after a 77-year-old woman worker at the facility tested positive twice in the past week.

The Wacol centre, west of the Brisbane CBD, was put into lockdown on Thursday, and testing of more than 500 workers and 127 inmates was being undertaken.

Four of the newly-diagnosed cases are workers at the centre and two others are relatives.

Chief health officer Jeanette Young said the first case was the 77-year-old woman, who did five shifts at the facility while infectious and lives in the Ipswich suburb of Bundamba.

Another case, a man who worked at the Wacol centre and became sick at around the same time as the woman, lives at Marsden.

Another female worker at the centre lives in Forest Lake.

A third man who works in the centre also has done work for QBuild at SpringwoodSchool, which Young said she would be working with to decide whether it opens or not on Monday. His wife has also tested positive.

Another male worker at the facility lives in North Ipswich, who has a relative who was in the Ipswich Hospital.

Aged-care facilities and disability accommodation centres in the greater Brisbane region have also been locked down in a bid to protect residents from the virus.

Young said the measures were necessary to stop further transmission.

"We've clearly got community spread," she said.

Police said extra resources had been deployed to assist with contact tracing to identify people who might have been exposed to the virus.

Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said the new restrictions would be immediately enforced.

"The message to the community is that we will take this seriously from a policing perspective," he said.

"As we have always, throughout the response, we will act with compassion, use communication, but we need your compliance.

"For anyone who blatantly decides to disregard those restrictions there will be consequences, so please work with us."

There have now been 1103 coronavirus cases diagnosed in Queensland since the beginning of the outbreak.