Townsville and southeast Queensland plunged into lockdown

Townsville, Magnetic Island and southeast Queensland will be plunged into a three-day lockdown as new community cases are confirmed.

From 6:00pm tonight people in Townsville, Palm Island, Magnetic Island, and southeast Queensland, including Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Gold Coast will only be allowed to leave their homes for essential reasons until at least 6:00pm on Friday.

It comes after two community cases were recorded overnight. One, considered "low risk", is a miner linked to the Northern Territory mine outbreak.

The other which is of greater concern is a 19-year-old clerical worker from the Prince Charles hospital who was infectious in the community for 10 days including when she travelled to the state's north last week.

The 19-year-old visited multiple sites in Brisbane before travelling with her family from their home in Sandgate near Brisbane to Magnetic Island on Thursday 24 June.

They were in the Brisbane Airport between 9:00am to 10:00am before boarding flight VA369 to Townsville.

At the Townsville airport, they spent an hour at the airport brewery before travelling to Magnetic Island where they stayed from 12:00pm on Thursday to 12:00pm Sunday 27 June.

They then travelled back to Townsville on Sunday, where they visited the Townsville City Markets before flying back to Brisbane that afternoon on flight VA374 at 2:55pm.

“I’m asking every single person on Magnetic Island to get tested whether or not they have symptoms,” Chief Health Office Doctor Jeannette Young said.

Two family members and a friend of the woman are also sick but their test result are yet to be returned.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the “there is a lot of contact tracing happening there, so the risk is real and we need to act quickly.

“We need to go hard and we need to go fast.”

Genomic sequencing is currently underway to determine which variant of the virus the woman has.

The women is a casual receptionist outside the COVID-19 ward at the Prince Charles Hospital.

“Despite health directives that she should have been vaccinated she was not,” Palaszczuk said.

“I am absolutely furious.”

Contact tracing for venues and flights can be found at www.health.qld.gov.au/tracing.

Restrictions

From 6:00pm people in lockdown regions can only leave home for the following reasons:

1. To buy essentials such as groceries or medications
2. Work or study if you can’t do either from home
3. Exercise in your local area (with no more than one person outside of your household)
4. Healthcare or to provide help, care or support

Restrictions in those regions include:

• Cafés, pubs and restaurants will be open only for take away or home delivery.
• Visitors at private homes are limited to two.
• Funerals are allowed up to 20 people, while weddings are allowed up to 10 people, including the celebrant and witnesses.
• Masks to be worn when leaving home.
• Aged care, correctional centres, hospitals and disability service providers will close to visitors.

The restrictions will be reviewed on Friday morning.

Anyone who is in the lockdown regions and leaves before 6:00pm is still required to abide by the lockdown restrictions.

Border restrictions

Meanwhile, as outbreaks in other states grow, Queensland has declared the Perth and Peel regions in Western Australia, as well as Darwin, Palmerston and Linchfield in the Northern Territory, as hotspots.

From 1:00am Wednesday you will only be able to come to Queensland from these hotspots if you are a returning resident and will need to go into hotel quarantine. Anyone who is not a Queensland resident will need to apply for an exemption.

35 Local Government Areas in Greater Sydney were already previously declared hotspots.