Queensland records four new cases of COVID-19, two of those in the community – ABC News

Queensland has recordedtwonew community cases of COVID-19 on thesecond day of lockdown, including one detected outside known clusters.

Premier AnnastaciaPalaszczuk said one of the new cases was aclose contact of a cluster linked to the Portuguese Family Centre in Brisbane and had been in quarantine.

The otheris a 37-year-old woman who worked at the Qatar Airline check-in counter at the Brisbane International airport.

Shebecame symptomatic on Sunday, with her infectious period dating back to last Friday.

"We are very encouraged at the moment," Ms Palaszczuk said.

"We are not seeing more wide-scale community cases, it is very encouraging ... we're not out of the woods yet, we've gotanother 24 hours to see what happens."

Lockdown is due to lift in south-east Queensland, Townsville, Magnetic Island and Palm Island at 6:00pm Friday, but a decision is expected tomorrow morning on whether it will be extended or lifted.

Including today's unlinked case, Queensland's Chief Health Officer Jeannette Youngsaid authorities aremanaging five separate clusters at least three are of the highly infectiousDelta variant.

"Each incident in of itself I am fairly confident about, but five of them simultaneously is a lot," she said.

"We will just have to wait and see how we go."

AAP: Darren England

Dr Young believed the airline worker probably acquired the virus through fly-in fly-outinternational flight crew while at the airport.

The woman attended a number of locations including:

"She does have another person who lives in the same household who we are urgently testing and we are testing close contacts,"Dr Young said.

"She works at the check-in counter for Qatar Airlines, so that means she will be checking in not only the passengers but she would be involved with the crew and we do know that international flight crews are high risk."

There were another two cases in Queensland today, both were acquired overseas and detected in hotel quarantine.

Ms Palaszczuk confirmed she had written to the Commonwealth to request a 50 per cent lowering of the cap for international arrivals.

In the past 24 hours, 29,990 tests were done,as well as a record18,162 vaccinations.

We offer tailored front pages for local audiences in each state and territory. Find out how to opt in for more Queensland news.

The high demandmeant some people were turned away from testing sitesand otherswaited more than seven hours.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said vaccination centres wouldhave extended hours and a second testing site wouldbe set up in Townsville today.

She said there had been reports of people abusing staff, including one on the Sunshine Coast.

"Can I ask the public to be respectful to our staff who are working tirelessly," she said.

"They do not deserve any abuse in the roles that they are undertaking."

Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollchewski said it was very disappointing to see people flocking to beaches on the Gold and Sunshine Coast during the lockdown.

"Going to the beach to lie on it, particularly without a mask on, is definitely not one of them [essential reasons to leave home]," he said.

ABC News: Cathy Border

"If people are in their local area and they want to go and exercise, and that includes running on the beach or swimming, fine.

"But for the purpose of just lying there in the sun, no they cannot."

He said officers had been asking beach goers to abide by restrictions, but had "better" things to be doing.

Queensland Health has addedmore venues to the growing list of possible exposure sites.Here is the updated list.

Only"a couple of people" had so far been fined butno breach notices were issued.

"If it happens again today we are really going to have to start looking at whether we take a firmer position on that.

Another 1,315 vehicles were intercepted at the border yesterday but only two were turned around.

At the airport,1,826 people were processed, eight people were refused entry and 72 people were put into quarantine.

"There still are a few people trying to get in when they should not, but the numbers are quite low compared to what we have seen in the past,"he said.

More than 300 international arrivals were also processed yesterday.

Loading form...

Continue reading here:

Queensland records four new cases of COVID-19, two of those in the community - ABC News