Greater Brisbane plunged into a three-day lockdown, after a cluster of the highly virulent UK strain emerged in the community.The new cases bring the new cluster to 15 cases, including two men from the city’s north, a nurse and her sister, two people believed to be colleagues of one of the northside men.A Gold Coast nursing home is reportedly on high alert after a contractor undertaking refurbishments at the facility is believed to have tested positive for COVID-19.Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said six of the state’s new cases are close contacts of previously confirmed cases, and two are under investigation.There are 78 cases active in the state. The nurse and her sister spent the weekend at Byron Bay while unknowingly infectious, while one of the men spent a number of days in Gladstone.No new cases were detected in NSW overnight, despite the women visiting two major locations.It came as theGold Coast Bulletin was shown a letter seemingly penned by the facility manager of Tricare Mermaid Beach on Monday night, which outlines concerns.In the letter to “families and representatives”, the Tricare manager wrote the facility had “received news that a contractor involved with the refurbishments who was onsite today has returned a positive test for COVID-19”.“The contractor left the site immediately after he was notified of being a close contact to a confirmed case,” the letter reads.“The contractor had no direct contact with any residents for the two hour period that (they) was on site.”Meantime, there have been no new cases of coronavirus in NSW but several new venues in a popular holiday spot are on alert.NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian confirmed the news today but urged people to get tested after just 7000 swabs were taken in the latest reporting period.The announcement momentarily quells fears of an outbreak in northern NSW after two Queensland women travelled to Byron Bay while unknowingly infectious, sparking concerns the virus may have spread across the border.Anyone who was at the Byron Beach Hotel on March 26 between 7.15pm and 8.30pm must isolate for 14 days and get tested.The same goes for those at The Farm Byron Bay on March 28 between 8am and 9.30pm.Also anyone who visited the Suffolk Beachfront Holiday Park communal toilets on March 26 from 6pm to 6.30pm and 9.10pm to 9.30pm and on March 27 from 3.20pm to 3.50pm should immediately get tested and self-isolate.The same precautions should be taken for patrons who went to Mokha Cafe at Byron Bay on March 27, from 10.30am to 11.30am.Many other businesses and venues including a bottle shop and retail store have also been flagged as exposure sites.Holidays are up in the air after Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk yesterday announced Greater Brisbane would enter a snap, three-day lockdown from 5pm yesterday.The state recorded an alarming 10 new cases in the 24 hours to Monday morning.While six were acquired overseas, four were the result of community transmission and were all the highly contagious UK variant.Two of the cases are linked to the latest cluster, but health authorities are scrambling to work out how two other people contracted the virus.Ms Palaszczuk has declared Greater Brisbane a hotspot and urged premiers from other states across the country to do the same thing.Western Australia will introduce a hard border with Queensland from 12.01am on Tuesday, labelling the state a “medium risk” following the “escalating situation” with its COVID-19 outbreak.NED-1859 State of our bordersIn recent days Queensland had been classified as a “low risk” state under WA’s controlled interstate border rules.Premier Mark McGowan said updated advice had been received from the WA chief health officer on Monday.Victoria has declared Greater Brisbane a red zone under Victoria’s travel permit system as of 6pm Victorian time on Monday.A red zone means non-Victorian residents are not allowed to enter Victoria without an exception, specified worker permit, transit permit, freight worker permit, or exemption.Victorian residents in Greater Brisbane can apply for a ‘red zone’ permit to return home, but must quarantine for 14 days as soon as they arrive.Tasmania updated its public health advice on Monday after news of the lockdown broke.Anyone who has travelled to the Greater Brisbane local government areas in the past 14 days is now no longer permitted to enter the state unless they are classified as an essential traveller.South Australian Premier Steven Marshall quickly followed suit, declaring no one from the Greater Brisbane area would be allowed into the state from 4pm on Monday.Essential workers, South Australian residents and people relocating permanently for work will be permitted but will have to self-quarantine for 14 days.Mr Marshall said he wasn’t happy about instituting a hard border and it would come down as soon as was safe.CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF QLD EXPOSURE SITESCLICK HERE FOR NSW EXPOSURE SITESPANIC BUYING CAUSES CHAOS IN BRISBANE A heavily pregnant woman was run into with a trolley by a shopper “desperate to get flour” and one-hour queues were reported as panic buying gripped a frenzied Brisbane on Monday.Queues to enter supermarkets snaked around corners with managers saying they were swamped with customers desperate to stockpile groceries, according to the Courier Mail.Queues of up to an hour were reported for shoppers to reach the check-outs.Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the new restrictions were needed to avoid a longer lockdown. “What this means for greater Brisbane is that we will have to go into a three-day lockdown. This is the UK strain. It is highly infectious. Now we need to do this now to avoid a longer lockdown,” she told reporters in Brisbane.The restrictions include the areas of Logan, Moreton Bay, Ipswich and Redlands.Residents will only be allowed to leave their house for four essential reasons: exercise with family groups, shopping for essentials, health care and caring; work and school if they can’t be done from home.Schools will close and restaurants and cafes will only be able to serve take away.Masks will be mandatory in all public indoor settings. Ms Palaszczuk said there were 10 new cases on Monday, but six were from overseas.Of the four local cases, two are under investigation but one is believed to be a nurse from the Princess Alexandra Hospital.NED-3548-Greater-Brisbane-Lockdown-MapChief Health Officer Jannette Young revealed two of the cases had recently been in popular holiday spot Byron Bay in NSW.“So we now have significant community transmission and significant numbers of venues of concern all through Brisbane and we know that people have moved from Brisbane out into the broader community,” Ms Young said.Consequently, mask wearing is compulsory for all public indoor spaces across Queensland, gatherings at home will be limited to 30 people, all patrons must be seated at hospitality venues and visitor limits will be introduced in hospitals, aged care homes and disability care centres.The four local cases raises the cluster linked to the Princess Alexandra Hospital to seven.The cluster unfolded as follows: a man in Stafford was diagnosed last Friday; he then infected a man in Strathpine wrongly accused of throwing a house party while isolating; the brother of one of the aforementioned men was found to be a historical case. He is no longer infectious but is believed to be the missing link between this cluster and a doctor who was infected earlier in the month; two of the new cases are work colleagues of the Strathpine man. They may also be housemates. One of these men was in Gladstone between March 25 and 28 while infectious; a nurse who worked in a COVID-19 ward has also been infected; the nurse’s sister was also infected. They both travelled to Byron Bay, NSW, while infectious.NED-3537 Brisbane Community Transmission MapNSW has issued alerts for two Byron Bay venues after the two Queensland cases attend a number of venues in the Byron Bay area from March 26-28.Anyone who attended the following venues at the times listed should immediately get tested and isolate until they receive further advice from NSW Health.Byron Beach Hotel from 7.15pm-8.30pm on March 26The Farm Byron Bay from 8am – 9.30am on March 28“NSW Health is urging anyone in the Byron Bay area with even the mildest of symptoms to come forward for testing and self-isolate immediately,” NSW Health said.Meanwhile, Premier Palaszczuk urged the rest of Australia to declare Greater Brisbane a “hot spot”.“My recommendation to other states and territories is that they should declare this Greater Brisbane a hot spot as well,” she said.“That worked very well when we did that last time. Once we declare it we are asking other people around the country to do that same thing and declare it as well.”Brisbane-lockdown-mar-2021Meantime, Health Minister Greg Hunt said that there have been 82,500 aged care residents who have now been vaccinated and that covers over 795 facilities that have received first doses and 222 that have received a second dose.Total national vaccinations now stand at 541,761, with more than 259,000 vaccinations in the last week as the general practice program came on board.“So I think that is extremelyimportant and that’s indicating that this program is continuing to accelerate as it will this week,” Mr Hunt said.He urged anyone in Brisbane that has a vaccination planned to keep the appointment. “Vaccinations are considered a critical reason to leave home,” he said“We would encourage all patients, subject to checking with their doctors, to continue with their vaccination program.”Over 82,000 aged care residents have now been vaccinated as Australia’s vaccination total hits 541,000. Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australia can only be “fully protected once we are vaccinated” and after nations across the globe are vaccinated. He pointed to the ongoing COVID outbreaks across the world as the number of global cases grows by around 500,000 a day. As part of Australia’s ongoing rollout, 82,500 aged care residents have been vaccinated across over 795 facilities. Over 259,000 vaccines in the past week has also brought Australia’s total national vaccinations to 541,761 as the nation’s GPs continue their rollout program.COVID ‘PARTY HOST’ BREAKS SILENCEA Brisbane man with COVID-19 falsely accused of hosting a party while awaiting his test results has broken his silence, saying Queensland Health “mixed up” contact tracing information. Lachlan Simpson, 25, tested positive to the virus on Friday night after his friend, a 26-year-old Stafford man, returned a positive result on Thursday. Queensland Health released a statement on Saturday night, saying Mr Simpson had hosted a party for 25 people while awaiting his test results. But Health Minister Yvette D’Ath backtracked on that claim on Sunday, saying only five people were in the home. Queensland Police on Sunday night confirmed that no one apart from Mr Simpson and his four housemates had been in the house while they awaited their test results. Mr Simpson told Nine News he had hosted a gathering of 25 people “two weeks prior” to getting tested. “My heart’s been racing for the last 24 hours … I didn’t have a party with 25 people,” he said from his isolated room at the Royal Brisbane Hospital on Sunday.“Somehow they’ve taken that day and moved it forward to Friday.“We went on a pub crawl the next day (after the gathering two weeks ago) but I think at that point I had no symptoms at all.”Ms D’Ath did not apologise to Mr Simpson on Sunday when asked if she would like to and has failed to explain how the incorrect information was released. “That is the information that I was briefed on at the time,” she said. “I understand that the health officials who originally spoke to this gentleman … they say that’s what they understood he had told them. “Whether it was a misunderstanding at the time, or what it was, I can’t tell you.“I wasn’t there. I didn’t hear the conversation.”Lachlan Simpson has spoken out about how authorities falsely accused him of hosting a party while awaiting COVID test results. Queensland Police confirmed on Sunday night that their independent investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing. “Police investigators have not found any evidence to warrant action being taken against a man following reports of a house party involving people in quarantine at Strathpine,” a statement read.“Inquiries into this matter are now finalised.”Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski told Today on Monday that police had acted quickly to try to stop “the virus spreading.”“In policing, people tell us lots of things and we have to run it out and work out what the truth is, and it takes time sometimes … but in a pandemic you have to act quickly,” he said.“What we are worried about, and what we have seen previously, is there is a strong reaction against people who are seen to have spread COVID … We wanted to jump on that and stop that happening.”Queensland Health has also updated their contact tracing information based on Mr Simpson’s movements while he was unknowingly infectious. Anyone who attended the following venues needs to quarantine for 14 days since the day of attendance: March 20: Black Hops Brewery, East Brisbane: 12pm-2pmMarch 20: Green Beacon Brewing Co, Teneriffe: 2pm-3.12pmMarch 20: Eatons Hill Hotel, Eatons Hill: 3.44pm-5.30pmMarch 22: PCYC Pine Rivers, Bray Park: 7.16am-8.10amQLD PREMIER BEGS PM TO REDUCE OVERSEAS ARRIVALSQueensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made a desperate request to Scott Morrison to alter his COVID-19 plan amid a surge in positive cases in the state.Ms Palaszczuk wants the prime minister to halve the number of overseas arrivals permitted into Queensland, with the state’s hospitals close to capacity.“Basically, every day over the last fortnight, we have been seeing five or six cases,” she said in a press conference on Saturday.“We’re almost at the capacity of our hospitals that we were at the peak the pandemic. That is not to say our hospitals cannot cope, they will be able to cope, but this is a large influx that we are seeing, and the high rate of people coming back are returned travellers testing positive.”Ms Palaszczuk said she had written to Mr Morrison asking for a two-week postponement. She said around 1300 people a week were coming into the state from overseas.“I’m asking the Prime Minister to halve our number of overseas returning travellers,” she said.We are just asking for the next two weeks while we get everything under control, and the fact that we are seeing these every single days, we are getting positives out of hotel quarantine. We’re not seeing large-scale immunity transmission, just close contacts.”QLD OUTBREAK LINKED TO UK STRAINA man who visited a dozen Brisbane venues while infectious has been confirmed to have the highly contagious UK strain and has been linked to a previous cluster.The state’s health department on Friday night said genomic testing had confirmed that the man was linked to a cluster announced on March 12, which involved a doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and two returned travellers.He is also confirmed as having the highly infectious UK mutant strain of the virus, known as the B117 variant.The man, who has been infectious for over a week, was quite active in the community until Thursday when he returned two positive tests. How he caught the virus had been unknown for most of Friday as contact tracers raced to figure out how he had become infected – achieving it in less than 24 hours.Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said it was likely that there was one unidentified intermediary who had passed the virus onto the man.Contact tracers issued an updated list of venues the man visited in the evening, adding a respiratory clinic, Japanese grocery store and an organic wholefoods store to the original list.There are also now revised the times the man visited the Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre.Anyone who has visited the following venues is urged to immediately get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result and have no more symptoms:March 20:Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre (including Shinobi Ramen Noodle Shop, Fresh Sensations, Go Vita, Robins Kitchen, Harris Scarfe and Kmart) 12pm-2.16pm Market Organics, Newmarket 2.45pm-3pmBaskin Robbins, Everton Park 9.20pm-9.25pmMarch 21:Genki Mart, Alderley 10.30am-10.46amMama’s Italian restaurant, Redcliffe 12.30pm-3.10pmMarch 22:Guzman and Gomez (drive-through), Stafford 12.20pm-12.25pmBunnings, Stafford 12.40pm-12.50pmMarch 25:Aldi, Stafford 8.30am-8.45amNundah Respiratory Clinic, Nundah 11.15am-11.40amNational Vaccine RolloutLow risk venues include Gasworks Plaza in Newstead on March 21 between 9.50am and 10.20am, and KFC in Everton Park on March 22 from 7.55pm to 8pm.Other parts of Westfield Carindale Shopping Centre on March 20 between 12pm and 2.16pm are also considered low risk venues.“People who attended these venues at the relevant time are asked to monitor their health and immediately get tested if they get any COVID-19 symptoms,” Queensland Health warned.Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was crucial for anyone feeling unwell over the next few days to put themselves forward for testing. “We absolutely want people, especially over the next two (to) three days, to come forward and get tested if you are feeling unwell and you have symptoms,” she said.She said aged care, hospitals, prisons, and disability care homes in the Brisbane City and Moreton Bay Council areas will be closed to visitors.There were six other cases recorded overnight on Thursday.Three are from Papua New Guinea and two are from Ethiopia in hotel quarantine, while the other is a historical case.Health Minister Yvette D’Ath on Friday said there were 69 positive cases in the state with all those who have contracted the virus in hospital.Almost all cases have been returned travellers.“We are concerned with the number of positive cases coming in,” Ms D’Ath said.Ms Palaszczuk said the “large majority of them are coming from Papua New Guinea” and that was concerning and she would be raising that with the Morrison Government.“I do think this is a really serious issue and I’ll be having further conversations,” Ms Palaszczuk said.The news comes as nearly 100 suburbs were put on high alert following a positive wastewater detection. The diagnosis of a doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital who contracted COVID-19 on March 12 saw the reinstatement of some strict lockdown measures. The doctor had treated a patient at the PA Hospital, who was COVID-19 positive, on March 10.When you can get the COVID vaccine?
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