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Brisbane Lockdown Lifted Monday 11 January but Some Restrictions to Remain
January 12, 2021
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the lockdown ended at 6pm (7pm AEST) Monday 11 January, but some restrictions will continue until January 22. Residents in the council areas of Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay and Redlands must continue to wear masks indoors as a precautionary measure.
“We wanted to make sure we acted quickly, we acted strongly, we acted decisively and that is exactly what we did,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“Can I thank people in the greater Brisbane region for responding in the way that they did. It has been absolutely, truly remarkable.
“So, I can announce that the reward for their sacrifice is that we are able to end our lockdown after three days. That is fantastic news.”
Brisbane’s lockdown was lifted Monday 11th January after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive to the highly infectious UK strain.
Masks are required to be worn in public indoor areas, including at shopping centres, supermarkets, retail outlets and indoor markets, as well as in hospitals, aged care facilities, place of worship, libraries, gyms and indoor recreations facilities.
The mask mandate also includes hairdressers and beauty salons.
Office workers are not required to wear masks if they can social distance.
“It is for 10 days only and then hopefully if we get zero community transmission over those 10 days, then we can just go back to the rest of Queensland,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
Restrictions will also be in place for businesses, with retail and indoor dining reverting back to the one person per four square metre rule.
Brisbane’s 2.5 million residents were sent into lockdown after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive to the highly infectious UK strain last week.
The mutant UK strain is believed to be 70 per cent more infectious than other strains of the virus. The woman tested negative on December 29 after flying to Brisbane from Melbourne and became infectious on January 2.
She was in the community with the highly contagious strain of COVID-19 for five days.
Ms Palaszczuk maintained the lockdown was necessary in order to prevent an outbreak and to protect the community.
“This has been unprecedented, it has been extraordinary time for people and as we know, this UK variant, the reason why we did it, and why we are continuing to wear our masks in those public areas is because this is a highly contagious strain,” she said.
“We don’t want to see that in our community.”
Residents in the Sunshine Coast town of Maleny rushed to get tested on the weekend.
Four people tested positive to COVID-19 in hotel quarantine overnight in Queensland.
All had flown from the United Arab Emirates and two had travelled from the UK.
Two of the cases were flight crew with airline Emirates.
A total of 18,904 people were tested in the state in the past 24 hours.
Queensland’s contact tracers have identified 304 close contacts of the infected cleaner and 154 had returned negative test results.
