Following additional COVID-19 cases in New South Wales, Queensland is declaring a further six Local Government Areas in Sydney a COVID-19 hotspot from 1am tomorrow, Thursday, 24 June 2021.
The Local Government Areas of City of Sydney, Woollahra, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West and Randwick will be a declared hotspot from 1am tomorrow, joining the Waverley LGA. Waverley LGA has been a hotspot since 19 June 2021.
From 1am tomorrow, anyone who has been in any of these LGAs will not be allowed to enter Queensland unless they are a returning Queensland resident, except for a limited range of people who can enter for an essential purpose.
Anyone who is allowed to enter Queensland from these locations will be required to go into 14 days mandatory hotel quarantine.
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said Queensland was continuing to take a cautious approach as positive cases increased in Sydney.
“I know this is difficult timing with school holidays coming up, but my priority is to ensure the health and safety of Queenslanders,” Dr Young said.
“The recent cases in Sydney are very concerning due to many of these cases being infected by fleeting contact. The number of exposure sites is also rapidly increasing, with more than 120 exposure sites currently listed.
“The Delta variant is much more contagious than other variants and we do not want it circulating in Queensland.
“There may be more people in Sydney that have been infected and we must protect Queenslanders from the risk of COVID-19 as much as possible.
“These border measures are necessary to limit the spread, and we are following the lead of Victoria in implementing further border restrictions for New South Wales.
“The hotspot declaration will not be backdated. It will apply to anyone that has been in the hotspot locations on or after 1am tomorrow,” she said.
Queenslanders are encouraged to reconsider non-essential travel to Greater Sydney and surrounding regions at this time.
“If there is further spread into New South Wales, we may have to extend border restrictions into more local government areas,” Dr Young said.
Anyone who has arrived into Queensland from interstate in the past 14 days is encouraged to check and monitor the latest contact tracing locations, with new exposure sites identified by NSW Health overnight.
Contact tracing locations are published at www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/health-alerts/coronavirus-covid-19/current-status/contact-tracing
If you have been to any of the exposure sites at the specified times, you must follow the health advice.
Anyone experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms, especially if they have recently returned from New South Wales, should immediately get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result.
Testing locations are available at www.qld.gov.au/covid19testing
Genome sequencing results have confirmed that three confirmed cases recently detected in hotel quarantine at the Brisbane Airport Novotel are linked. These cases have previously been announced as overseas acquired cases.
Queensland Health is undertaking urgent investigations to understand how the transmission occurred in the hotel, however there is no risk to the community at this time.
“Anyone who is currently on the same floor will have their stay extended until we confirm there’s been no additional transmission,” Dr Young said.
“Anyone who was on the same floor and has since left hotel quarantine will be contacted and will need to quarantine while these investigations are undertaken,” she said.
Queensland Health is also continuing investigations into the transmission event at the Four Points aircrew quarantine hotel.
“A review of CCTV cannot identify any breach of protocol, however I do want to thank the hotel for their work and their cooperation,” Dr Young said.
“We are confident no hotel employee was involved in the suspected fomite transmission,” she said.
ENDS