NORTHERN BARBECUE HITS SNAG

TOWNSVILLE City Council has declared cooking snags on The Strand is cancelled, disconnecting more than 100 public barbecues as part of its wide-ranging shutdown of services in response to tough new nationwide restrictions.

It comes as Townsville recorded two new cases of coronavirus, taking the total to five, including a council staffer who tested positive for coronavirus after returning from a European Contiki tour.

The employee had been in isolation since returning, where he will remain until he is cleared by Queensland Health.

Queensland’s tally of COVID-19 cases has jumped by 46 overnight, taking the total to 443, with the majority still concentrated in the southeast corner of the Sunshine State.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison late on Tuesday night announced stage two of Australia’s coronavirus lockdown, including the shuttering of nail salons, tattoo parlours, restricting weddings to five people, funerals to 10, and haircuts to no longer than 30 minutes.

Galleries, museums, libraries and swimming pools were also told to shut, though Townsville City Council had announced it would close those venues just hours before the announcement.

Mayor Jenny Hill yesterday announced councilowned pools, including Kokoda Memorial and Long Tan Memorial, would close, along with the Rockpool, the Strand Waterpark, Riverway Lagoons, and the Northern Beaches Leisure Centre.

Social events, including barbecues with extended family, are also off the table, prompting Townsville City Council to disconnect 121 public barbecues, including 11 that are wood-fuelled.

The council’s pool lessees had been notified, Cr Hill said, and measures were being discussed about pausing rent commitments during the shutdown.

She said up to 70 casuals within the council had been redeployed to other parts of the organisation or to volunteer organisations that need help, but she did not pinpoint exactly how many staff had been impacted by the venue shutdown.

The economic blow to the council’s budget remains unknown, though Cr Hill said the bottom line of councils across Queensland would not be “healthy” post-pandemic.

The local government elections will still go ahead this Saturday despite the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly warning that from a health perspective, it had the potential to spread the virus.

“If this was going to go ahead, that would be a potential for a major mixing event,” Prof Kelly said.

At the same press conference he said if one person with the disease did not observe social distance and hand hygiene they could infect three people, who in turn could infect three more people each.

“Within a month one person will result in 400 other people,” Prof Kelly said.