March 29, 2021
The Greater Brisbane area will go into lockdown for three days from 5:00pm on Monday after the confirmation of four news cases of community transmission.
The lockdown will also affect anyone who has been in Brisbane since March 20.
At a media conference on Monday morning, it was announced that:
- Two new cases were linked to the Strathpine case identified on Saturday. One of these people was in Gladstone for three days, possibly while infectious.
- A Princess Alexandra Hospital nurse and her daughter had also tested positive. The pair were recently in Byron Bay and NSW Health authorities have been notified.
The Greater Brisbane area is defined as the Ipswich, Logan, Redlands, Moreton Bay and Brisbane council areas.
The lockdown means people in the Greater Brisbane region will only be able to leave home for essential work, grocery shopping, exercise, to look after a vulnerable person or medical care.
Masks will also be mandatory in the Greater Brisbane area and people elsewhere in Queensland must carry masks with them at all times.
(See separate report: Masks For ALL Queensland)
Schools in the Greater Brisbane area will close from Tuesday (March 30) – except for children of essential workers and for vulnerable children – and not reopen until Term 2 (April 19).
Camping grounds in National Parks in the area will also be closed (but will remain open for people who live nearby for exercise).
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged people not to panic buy, saying supermarkets would remain open.
She declared the Greater Brisbane area a hotspot and suggested all other State and Territory leaders do the same.
The Premier said the latest cases were the UK strain, which was highly infectious.
“We need to do this now to avoid a longer lockdown,” she said.
She said it would enable health authorities to get on top of the “huge job” of contact tracing.
Gatherings at homes outside the Greater Brisbane area will be limited to 30 people.
Outside the Greater Brisbane area, restaurants, cafes, bars and nightclubs can only open for seated eating and drinking, no standing allowed.
NB: Visitor restrictions for aged care facilities, disability accommodation services, hospitals and correctional facilities were introduced at noon on Friday (March 26).
Related articles:
- What’s On, What’s Not
- Updated Contact Venues List
- Masks For ALL Queensland
- More Venues Added To List
- Second Case Tests Positive
- Brisbane Man Tests Positive
[UPDATED]
At a press conference this morning the premier stated, “…these people also traveled to Gladstone so that mean that for the rest of Queensland we will be putting in compulsory mask wearing…”
I checked QLD Health website but found nothing there to confirm this as yet.
I can see a lot of confusion occurring due to the message about Brisbane being in lockdown but nothing being mentioned by the media about compulsory mask wearing for all of QLD.
Yes, Bouncer, we heard that, too. And updating of the Queensland Health website has been very slow. However, earlier it was stated that mask wearing would be compulsory in the Greater Brisbane area, and that masks should also be worn in other areas where social distancing was not possible. If this position changes, we will update this news report.
Bouncer, we have updated our report now that Queensland Health has updated their website: Masks For ALL Queensland
re. Gladstone. The person that had COVID wandered around Gladstone for 3 days so I guess there is an enormous amount of contact tracing going on there, too. This contact tracing sure is a huge job and in Brisbane there are quite a few issues to be traced before we can be sure that things will not get out of hand. It sure seems as if Qld is definitely not up to the good standard of how NSW does their thing of COVID management. Actually NSW has a standard that all the rest of Australia needs to look up to! And they have had a lot of practice. Just recently Qld Health has made some real blunders.