Residents in Brisbane walk near the empty CBD after a snap lockdown was put into effect. Photo / Getty Images
Residents in Brisbane walk near the empty CBD after a snap lockdown was put into effect. Photo / Getty Images
Queensland has recorded 13 new community cases of Covid-19, all linked to the existing outbreak that prompted a lockdown in the state's southeast.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the growth of the cluster to a total of 31 cases required a 5 day extension of the current restrictions.
"It's starting to become clear that the initial lockdown will be insufficient for the outbreak," he said.
"So we're advising southeast Queenslanders in the 11 LGAs that the lockdown will be extended until 4pm on Sunday. That will make it an 8-day lockdown."
Queensland's health minister Yvette D'ath urged residents to adapt to the new threat of the Delta strain.
"This lockdown is harder for a good reason. We're trying to save lives," she said. "The rules are stricter this time, so please don't rely on what you've known in the past."
Residents in Brisbane walk near the empty CBD after a snap lockdown was put into effect. Photo / Getty Images
Virus 'could be anywhere' around Brisbane
Queensland's chief health officer Jeannette Young said on Saturday the Delta strain "could be anywhere" in southeast Queensland after a medical student, thought to be the index case, "travelled widely through Brisbane" while infectious.
Authorities are still working to determine how the medical student contracted the virus before passing it on to a 17-year-old high school girl whose case was the first in the outbreak to be announced.
Genome sequencing matched the infection to two returned travellers who flew to Brisbane on June 29, but Young said health officials have not found the missing link between the travellers and the medical student.
"I genuinely don't know how it's got from those two people who came in to Queensland on June 29 and now we've seen this outbreak," she said today.
"I don't know how it's got from those two original people to this household of five who are the first people that I've found in the cluster."
Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young said health officials have not found the missing link in the state's new outbreak. Photo / Getty Images
An Australian infectious disease expert has warned the Queensland outbreak has the makings of a "very significant event", similar to the situation being faced in Greater Sydney.
Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health, Dr Paul Griffin, told Weekend Today that Queensland had been fortunate to avoid widespread outbreaks of the Delta variant so far, but warned this situation could easily get out of control.
"This one is very different. This one really does have the makings of something significant," he said.
"There's a lot of concerning elements about this, including where these people have been, how many exposure sites there are, how many people are already infected as a result. So I do think we need a comprehensive and swift range of mitigation strategies which is what we've seen."
Health workers at a pop up Covid-19 testing clinic at in Brisbane. Photo / Getty Images
Thousands of students, staff and family members across five major Brisbane schools are in lockdown, and dozens of exposure sites including the University of Queensland and Westfield Indooroopilly have been listed.
Griffin said the snap lockdown announcement was the right approach, warning delayed action could result in an outbreak on scale with the one currently ravaging Sydney.
"Hopefully the lockdown allows contact tracers to get on top of this," he said.
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) July 31, 2021
The Queensland lockdown applies to 11 local government areas (LGAs) in the southeast and affect approximately 3.8 million residents out of the state's population of 5.1 million.
The LGAs are: Brisbane City, Moreton Bay Regional Council, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley Regional Council, Logan City, Noosa Shire Council, Redland City, Scenic Rim Regional Council, Somerset Regional Council and Sunshine Coast Regional Council.
People can only leave home for four reasons: to obtain essential goods like groceries and medications – but only within 10km of their homes, for essential work or childcare, medical care and exercise.
Brisbane residents have been urged to monitor the Queensland Health website, with exposure sites expected to grow.
The NZ Ministry of Health is urging people who have recently returned from Queensland to check whether they visited any of the state's locations of interest.
Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said anyone who had visited the relevant locations should immediately isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453.
NSW outbreak spikes
New South Wales has recorded new community cases of Covid-19, with at least 51 of those cases infectious while in the community.
Of the new cases, 105 are linked to existing outbreaks and the source of infection for 102 cases is under investigation
There is a total of 3,634 cases in the latest outbreak despite the Greater Sydney region now entering its sixth week of lockdown.
The NSW government is facing increasing scrutiny about why daily case numbers continue to increase and whether or not the current lockdown measures are stringent enough to bring those figures down.
The Greater Sydney lockdown is currently planned to end on August 28. Photo / Getty Images
Health officials believe the state could still allow for an easing of restrictions if an ambitious plan to reach a 70 per cent vaccination rate in 5 weeks is achieved.
With more than 82,000 vaccines doses distributed in 24 hours and 4.5 million extra Pfizer doses to arrive in Australia this month, federal officials are becoming increasingly optimistic that NSW's weekly vaccinations could rise to 650,000, according to The Australian.
That would see the state hitting 70 per cent vaccine coverage by early September.
"Once you get to 50 per cent vaccination, 60 per cent, 70 per cent, that triggers more freedoms. We can turn this around in four weeks," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Sunday after announcing 239 new Covid-19 cases.
"We have the month of August to get the vaccination rates as high as possible. Let August be the month where we break records with the vaccination."
The lockdown is due to end on August 28 but with daily case numbers still climbing there is speculation that restrictions may need to be extended once again if the vaccination threshold is not reached.
"When we get to five million jabs, or 9.2 million jabs, which is the 70 per cent number, we will be able to have a bit more freedom obviously than what we do today, moving forward. I can't stress that enough," Berejiklian said today.
