From 4pm on Saturday, 11 Local Government Areas in southeast Queensland will be forced to stay home until Tuesday afternoon. Health authorities declared the only four reasons any residents in those areas can leave home after the new infections from the mystery cluster were confirmed to have contracted the highly infectious Delta variant.Those few reasons to leave home include:Buy essentials such as grocery and medications Work if you can’t work from home. No school, except for those children of essential workersExercise within 10km from homeHealthcare, including to get a Covid-19 vaccination or to provide help, care or supportThe affected LGAs are Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Somerset, Noosa, Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim.There will be no visitors to homes in those LGAs, and non-essential businesses will be forced to close down.“Hospitality – pubs, clubs, cafes – will be restricted to takeaway only,” Mr Miles said.“Cinemas, entertainment venues, hairdressers, gyms, places of worship will all be closed.”The 10km geographic restriction is a tougher layer to this lockdown compared to the many enforced on Queensland over the last 18-months, with health authorities increasingly anxious of a destructive outbreak similar to the current crisis in NSW.Chief health officer Jeannette Young pleaded with those in the southeast to stay at home because she doesn’t “want people going out of their immediate area and then spreading the virus to a broader area”.“At the moment, I don’t know where this virus is in southeast Queensland,” she told reporters on Saturday morning.“It could be anywhere. I could be in the Sunshine Coast, because we had one of those original cases up there and they live in Buderim.“It could be down in the Gold Coast, because we had one of those original cases down there when they were being managed.“We know it’s in Taringa and we know it’s in Indooroopilly and we know that two members of that family went out to Ipswich to attend the vaccine clinic.”Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the crisis in Sydney was a pressing factor in the decision to lockdown millions of Queenslanders.“New South Wales had one case on 16 June. Thirty-eight days later, they are at 3000 cases,” she said.“From that one person — 38 days, 3,000 cases. Sadly, 13 people have died just from that one cluster. “We have to get this right.”
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