The chief health officer says Queensland is doing better than expected in containing the Delta outbreak after 16 new locally acquired cases were confirmed.
These were all linked to the Indooroopilly cluster and followed another record day of testing.
Dr Jeannette Young said Queensland was doing “really, really, really well” and she had not expected us to be “so far in front of the virus” at this stage.
The 16 new cases included three from Ironside State School, nine household contacts of those students, a teacher at Brisbane Grammar School, two students at Brisbane Grammar and one household contact from that school.
Only three of the cases were infectious in the community for one day and one was infectious in the community for two days, while the rest were in quarantine during their entire infectious period.
Eleven other infections were confirmed in crew members of an LNG ship anchored off Gladstone but they would be treated on board.
There were no locally acquired cases on the Sunshine Coast.
Dr Young said South-East Queensland had done an “amazing job” and if the lockdown was lifted on Sunday it would be “the quickest response to any significant outbreak anywhere”.
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The Indooroopilly cluster, which began with one infectious 17-year-old student, forced Queensland’s lockdown on Saturday with rapidly escalating daily cases.
However, there have been no new chains of transmission outside of that part of Brisbane and cases have been limited to that cluster.
Dr Young urged people to keep coming forward to get tested so she could be sure there were no other chains of transmission hiding in the community.
More than 52,000 people underwent testing on Wednesday which was a new record for the state and Deputy Premier Steven Miles urged Queenslanders to “keep it up”.
“What we have to do from here is keep it up to give the chief health officer a chance to see that there is not transmission other than Indooroopilly,” he said.
Dr Miles praised the 7700 people currently in home quarantine, describing them as our “first line of defence” who were doing a service in staying at home.
“We all want to take care of you because you are taking care of us,” he said, urging people to phone their friends in quarantine and offer them support.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the Prime Minister had promised to bring forward a massive delivery of Pfizer vaccine to Queensland.
More than 112,000 doses that were due to arrive in September will be brought forward to August, with half arriving next week and the rest the following week.
Authorities reiterated their pleas for Queenslanders from the Gold Coast to Noosa to only go out for essential items, and even consider limiting online shopping.
However, these comments have been criticised as “removed from reality” by online fashion retailer Fleur Richardson.
“What Jeanette Young is really saying is stop the economy,” she said.
“”We are very conscious as employers about how many families we feed and so we are putting the wellbeing of our employees first.”
There are now almost 200 COVID-19 exposure sites for close and casual contact across southeast, central and far north Queensland.
-with AAP
