QLD reinstates NSW border bubble, positive COVID case sees students at Brisbane school sent home

Queensland announced its border bubble with New South Wales will be reinstated from 1.00am this coming Monday in line with the easing of lockdown restrictions for some regional areas south of the border.

It comes as students at the Sir Thomas Moore College in Sunnybank, Brisbane have been sent home and ordered into quarantine along with their families for 14 days after a pupil tested positive for COVID-19 today.

With a number of regional NSW local government areas (LGAs) set to emerge from lockdown on Saturday, border bubble communities will be permitted to enter Queensland from 1am on Monday 13 September.

Only students and essential workers from the 12 border bubble LGAs will be allowed to cross into Queensland at that time, but the Premier says it is great news for the local communities.

“This is going to be great news for those local communities, and we’ll be monitoring it very closely because I think, as they said yesterday, if they do have any positives that come into those local LGAs they will actually put them back into lockdown,” Palaszczuk said.

“So it’s basically going back to that border bubble that we’ve had previously, so that’s great news for those communities and will ease some of the pressures along our border.”

The change has also been welcomed by NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro.

“We know how seamless and invisible that border is but unfortunately communities do get impacted at times when borders are closed," he said.

"Good news today for the people in the north of the state and especially for New South Wales, for the Tweed community in the Northern Rivers community, and fingers crossed we can keep the new arrangements in place to support those communities."

Meanwhile, NSW today reported 1,542 new cases and nine deaths in the 24 hours to 8.00pm yesterday.

The state has now hit 76.4 per cent of its adult population vaccinated with one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 43.6 per cent fully jabbed.

The NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian also announced she will no longer be doing daily COVID-19 press conferences from Monday, and will instead only front the media when required.

Sir Thomas Moore College students sent into quarantine

QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said sending all of the students at Sir Thomas Moore College home was just a “precaution”, and would give the state’s health authorities time to investigate the latest case.

“As a precaution, as this is a student who is around 13 years of age…we’ve actually asked the school to send the students home today,” Palaszczuk said.

“They are to stay at home until we get more information.”

The State’s chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young said the student attended the school over the last few days.

“We’ve asked the Principal to advise all children in that school to immediately be picked up and taken home and to go into quarantine for the next 14 days unless we get other information that would change the advice,” Dr Young said.

“Their whole family needs to go into quarantine for 14 days while we just work that one through.”

In addition, Dr Young released a number of public health alerts relating to another COVID-19 case that was active in Queensland while infectious.

The case, a man in his 20s who worked as a truck driver and lives in NSW, was tested in NSW on 5 September.

The test came back positive today and Dr Young says he was infectious in the community on the 5th and 6th of September.

He visited a number of venues including a BP service station at Archfield on 5 September and the Westfield Garden City shopping centre on 5 and 6 September.

“So please, could anyone who’s been to the Westfield Garden City shopping centre at any time on the Sunday or Monday go on our website and have a look at those specific venues and get tested,” Dr Young said.

“That’s really important.”

Updated at 12.02pm AEST on 10 September 2012.

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