3-day lockdown for Greater Brisbane as more Covid-19 cases confirmed

Queensland has recorded 10 new cases of coronavirus, four of those locally acquired, with Greater Brisbane to go into a three-day lockdown.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said six of the cases were overseas acquired and four were community transmission, two of those were linked to the 26-year-old landscaper from Stafford who tested positive to the highly infectious UK strain on Thursday night.

ABC News reports two of the cases have an unknown origin.

Greater Brisbane will now go into a three-day lockdown as of 5:00pm today and masks will be mandatory.

This includes the Ipswich, Logan, Redlands, Moreton and Brisbane council areas.

"Two are known cases of one of the previous people, then we have two under investigation but we believe one of them is a nurse from the PA hospital," Ms Palaszczuk said.

"Now what this says to us is the fact that there are now more community transmission and these people have been out and about in the community.

"And that is of now concern to Queensland Health and of course concern to me."

One of the new cases has been infectious in the community while in Gladstone and health authorities are trying to identify where that person has been.

Schools will close from tomorrow and people in Greater Brisbane will only be able to leave their homes for essential reasons like grocery shopping, exercise, work and medical care. 

Ms Palaszczuk said a three-day lockdown was necessary.

"This is the UK strain. It is highly infectious," she said.

"We need to do this now to avoid a longer lockdown.

"This will also enable our health authorities to get on top of the contact tracing.

"This is a huge job now that we have to do because we've got more of this community transmission.

"I know this will mean some disruption to people's lives but we've done this before and we've got through it over those three days in the past and if everyone does the right thing, I'm sure that we will be able to get through it again."

 

Photo ABC News  Caption: Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk