Greater Brisbane entered a hard lockdown at 6pm on Friday after a cleaner at a quarantine hotel was diagnosed with the highly contagious UK variant of COVID-19.
Residents in the council areas of Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay and Redlands are required to stay at home until 6pm on Monday except for essential work, exercise, essential shopping and to access healthcare.
Masks are also mandated for people leaving home in the Greater Brisbane area.
“It is incredibly important in this time to stop the spread of this infectious UK strain. We must act immediately, we must act strongly and we have taken those strong measures today,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters on Friday morning.
Ahead of the deadline, massive crowds flocked to supermarkets on Friday, stripping shelves of toiletries, perishables and canned goods with lines stretching for hundreds of metres at some stores.
Police were called in to untangle traffic gridlock around major supermarkets and shopping centres.
Shoppers faced long waits of up to two hours, with social media flooded with images of bare shelves and long checkout lines.
After encouraging shoppers to “only buy what they need”, supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles reintroduced storewide limits to cope with the overwhelming surge in demand.
Shoppers are restricted to purchase limits of two items from a range of toilet paper, anti-bacterial products, and canned, frozen goods from Friday.
“We understand this is an anxious time for Brisbane residents. However, we want to reassure our customers we will remain open as an essential service to support their food and grocery needs during the temporary lockdown,” Woolworths Supermarkets Director of Stores Rob Moffat said.
“We have stock to draw on from our suppliers and distribution centres, and it will continue to flow into stores in large volumes.
“We encourage everyone to continue shopping as they usually would and only buy what they need.”
Cafes, pubs and restaurants will be open only for take-away service.
Funerals will be restricted to 20 guests and weddings restricted to 10 guests.
There is a limit of two visitors in homes and people are allowed to exercise with one other.
People can enter Greater Brisbane during the lockdown period but are bound by the same restrictions.
Speaking to reporters following a special meeting of National Cabinet on Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared Greater Brisbane a coronavirus “hotspot” at the Commonwealth level.
Mr Morrison also introduced a raft of new international and domestic travel measures to strengthen COVID-19 protections in response to the growing threat of the highly infectious UK variant.
“This virus continues to write its own rules, and that means that we must continue to be adaptable in how we continue to fight it,” Mr Morrison said.
Earlier, he said the lockdown was a “wise call”.
“Wise call by Qld Premier @AnnastaciaMP to have a brief lockdown to enable Queensland health authorities to get on top of the UK strain case in Brisbane,” he tweeted.
“A big thanks in advance to everyone in greater Brisbane for their patience in coming days. This will buy much needed time.”
How have other states responded?
Tasmania responded to the news by declaring Greater Brisbane a high-risk area.
Any traveller arriving in Tasmania from Friday who has been in Greater Brisbane since 2 January will now need to quarantine for up to 14 days. People without “suitable premises” to quarantine in will be placed into a hotel.
In NSW, Acting Premier John Barilaro said state authorities were working with their counterparts in Queensland but his state was not considering a hard border. But he said anyone already in transit from Greater Brisbane to NSW must abide by Queensland’s isolation rules, and act as if they had remained in place.
WA premier Mark McGowan announced his state would impose a hard border with the entire state of Queensland from midnight on Friday, with travel only permitted with a police exemption.
South Australia has declared the Greater Brisbane area region a COVID-19 hotspot, with anyone arriving from midnight Friday required to go into quarantine for two weeks.
The Northern Territory Government has also declared Greater Brisbane a hotspot, starting immediately.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner said this means “anyone arriving in the Territory today from these regions will have to enter mandatory two-week quarantine”.
The cleaner is Australia’s first case of the more infectious variant of the coronavirus outside of quarantining returned overseas travellers.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly earlier said the situation in Queensland was concerning.
“We do know that we’ve had cases of the UK variant in our hotel quarantine system,” he told ABC RN.
“And we do know sometimes with a very complex system which relies on humans, mistakes can happen. That apparently is the case here.”
The hotel cleaner’s infection ended almost four months of zero locally-acquired cases in Queensland.
She visited several locations while potentially infectious and contact tracers are tracking her movements.
The woman travelled on a train from Altandi station to Roma Street station at 7am on 2 January, then returned on the 4pm service the same day.
She also visited Woolworths at the Calamvale Central Shopping Centre from 11am to 12pm on Sunday 3 January.
She was at Coles in Sunnybank Hills for 30 minutes from 7.30am on Tuesday 5 January and a newsagent at Sunnybank Hills Shopping Town from 8am to 8.15am on the same day.
Residents of Algester, Sunnybank Hills and Calamvale who have symptoms of the infection are especially urged to get tested as soon as possible.
Additional reporting by SBS News.
People in Australia must stay at least 1.5 metres away from others. Check your jurisdiction’s restrictions on gathering limits.
If you are experiencing cold or flu symptoms, stay home and arrange a test by calling your doctor or contact the Coronavirus Health Information Hotline on 1800 020 080. News and information is available in 63 languages at sbs.com.au/coronavirus.
Please check the relevant guidelines for your state or territory: NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, ACT, Tasmania.
