June 24, 2022
The State Government is easing more COVID-19 restrictions, including lifting vaccination mandates for workers in schools and kindergartens.
From 1:00am on Thursday, June 30, COVID-19 vaccinations will no longer be required for visitors to residential aged care, disability accommodation or prisons.
The high-risk workers COVID-19 vaccine mandate will also be revoked, with decisions around mandatory vaccinations to be left to employers.
The following workers will also no longer be required to be vaccinated for COVID:
- Schools, early childhood education, outside school care, kindergartens, family day care
- Prisons, community corrections, work camps
- Police watch houses
- Youth detention centres
- Airports
However, the public health directive mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for workers in healthcare, hospitals, aged care and disability care remains unchanged.
Post-arrival testing for people who have travelled to Queensland from overseas will also be scrapped.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said Queensland was adjusting its approach as it moved to the “next stage” of the pandemic.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the latest changes had been made in consultation with Chief Health Officer John Gerrard.
“Restrictions that protected us have eased in sensible stages,” the Premier said.
She said Queenslanders had “stood strong” and Queensland was one of the few places in the world which had managed to vaccinate the majority of the population before COVID-19 arrived.
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Another 4520 new cases of COVID-19 were announced by Queensland Health on Friday morning, as well as six deaths.
Queensland’s death toll is now 1192.
Four new COVID-19 cases were added to the South Burnett tally, taking the official number of infections since the pandemic began to 1229.
Cherbourg’s total remains at 304.
Other local council areas: Toowoomba 10,361; Gympie 3203; Somerset 1574; Western Downs 1259 and North Burnett 447.
Darling Downs Health area’s total is 21,246.
These are not the number of active cases, but show the number of cases which have officially been reported and allocated to a Council area since January 2020.
However, the true figures would be much higher – as at June 23, a total of 724,332 cases across Queensland had not be allocated to a Council area.
On Friday, a total of 522 people were in Queensland hospitals being treated for COVID-19, including seven in intensive care units.
A total of 46 people were under the care of Darling Downs Health.
