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Much of Queensland, including the entirety of the state's southeast, will go into lockdown from 6pm tonight as health authorities scramble to trace outbreaks of COVID-19 on multiple fronts.
As such, residents of Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Palm Island, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim will be in lockdown for three days until 6pm on Friday 2 July.
Residents can only leave the home for one of these four reasons:
- To buy essentials such as groceries or medications
- Work or study if you can't do either from home
- Exercise in your local area
- Healthcare or to provide help, care or support
The restricions mean non-essential businesses are not permitted to operate, with cinemas, entertainment and recreation venues, hairdressers, beauty and personal care services, gyms and places of worship to close.
Childcare centres will remain open.
Restaurants and cafes can provide take away or home delivery services only, and commercial hotel operators are permitted to continue trading from their attached bottleshops.
Funerals will be limited to 20 people, and weddings will be limited to 10 people, including the celebrant and the couple.
Restrictions on aged care, hospitals, disability care and correctional facilities apply with no personal visitors allowed.
It comes as the state recorded two new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 today, including a 19-year-old woman - a healthcare worker who was not vaccinated and was active in the community for 10 days.
QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said health authorities were very concerned about the movements of the unvaccinated 19 year old.
"I am absolutely furious about this," she said.
"We need to make sure that we are getting our population vaccinated, right across the state."
RELATED: QLD Deputy Premier calls for tightening of international arrival exemptions
The 19-year-old woman developed symptoms on Monday a week ago but was infectious in the state for 10 days, and had travelled from Brisbane to Townsville and then to Magnetic Island. As such, everyone that lives on Magnetic Island has been encouraged to come forward and get tested for COVID-19.
The infected person also visited the Sandgate Woolworths, the Bay Health Gym in Brisbane, caught the VA369 flight from Brisbane to Townsville on Thursday 24 June, and went to the Townsville Sunday Markets.
A full list of the exposure sites and relevant times is now available here.
"This leaves us with no other option," the Premier said.
"We've got these multiple issues happening across the southeast and now some risk of exposure in Townsville and regional Queensland, we've got that outbreak linked to the Portugese restaurant, we've got the flight attendant from Sydney who came up on multiple flights.
"We need to act quickly, we need to go hard, we need to go fast."
VIC and WA to close border to QLD LGAs
In response to the outbreaks in QLD and Western Australia the Victorian Government will impose border restrictions from 1am on Wednesday 30 June.
The local government areas (LGAs) of Perth and Peel in WA and the 11 LGAs in southeast QLD going into lockdown will all become red zones under the VIC travel permit scheme, meaning arrivals from those locations must undertake 14 days of quarantine on arrival.
In addition, WA is reintroducing a hard border with all of Queensland, transitioning the state from 'low risk' to a 'medium risk'. As such, travel from QLD to WA will no longer be permitted from 3pm today (AWST).
Updated at 11.58am AEST on 29 June 2021.
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