Brisbane remains out

Premier high- risk warning: ‘ Don’t come to Tasmania’

PREMIER Peter Gutwein’s message to travellers from the Greater Brisbane region is simple: “Don’t come”.

Travel restrictions remain in place for Greater Brisbane, with the area retaining its coronavirus high- risk status.

“Don’t come to Tasmania … that’s what a high- risk classification is,” Mr Gutwein said.

“They had six cases of the more virulent United Kingdom strain.”

Queensland recorded no new cases of community transmission overnight, but two new cases were detected in hotel quarantine.

Queensland Premier Ann as tacia Pal aszczuk said the latest genomic testing had uncovered six cases of the highly infectious UK variant of COVID- 19 with a man and his daughter who travelled back from Lebanon catching the virus from another quarantine guest. Anyone returned from overseas who stayed in Brisbane’s Hotel Grand Chancellor since December 30 has been asked to contact Public Health and arrange a COVID- 19 test.

Director of Public Health Mark Veitch said because there were no clear contact tracing links between the cases in Brisbane’s Hotel Grand Chancellor, Tasmania must still be mindful there was a small risk.

“There is still some risk of transmission in Brisbane over the coming week or so … that’s why we’ve deferred a decision to relax restrictions on people coming from Brisbane to Tasmania,” he said.

Greater Sydney and Wollongong also retain their medium- risk status – meaning travellers can still come to Tasmania, but must isolate on arrival.

“We currently have in place a medium- risk classification for the Sydney region and New South Wales authorities are continuing to work hard to get on top of the Northern Beaches cluster,” Mr Gutwein said.

The Premier said he expected it would take a number of weeks to get on top of the situation fully.

“There will be no change to the New South Wales risk settings,” he said.

“If you travel to Tasmania from the Greater Sydney area then you will go into quarantine in a suitable premises if you have one, if not you will quarantine in a government facility.”

The government next expects to update Tasmanians on ongoing coronavirus restrictions on Monday.