Page 280 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 9 February 2021
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demonstrating just how easily infections can pass across borders and potentially seed new outbreaks.
NSW Health worked extremely hard on successfully controlling these clusters, which allowed the ACT to remove the travel restrictions from all areas of New South Wales by 29 January.
As members would also be aware, while the New South Wales situation unfolded, on 2 January a hotel quarantine worker in Brisbane tested positive to COVID-19. Genomic sequencing confirmed that the case was the United Kingdom variant known as B.1.1.7. In response, the Queensland government introduced restrictions, including a three-day city-wide lockdown in Brisbane from 7 to 10 January. A large number of close contacts of the infected worker were contacted, tested and isolated. Several locations were identified, including train stations and supermarkets visited by the confirmed case, resulting in a large number of casual contacts.
With Queensland’s decision to introduce a lockdown and the potential for transmission beyond state borders, the ACT implemented the Public Health (COVID-19 Interstate Hotspots) Emergency Direction 2021 (No 4) on 8 January, after National Cabinet agreed to declare the local government areas of Brisbane, Logan, Moreton, Redlands and Ipswich COVID-19 affected areas.
The ACT’s public health direction provided support to Queensland, allowing time to slow the spread and assess the situation associated with the transmission of the UK COVID-19 variant strain. This direction temporarily required approximately 4,800 ACT residents returning from Queensland COVID-19-affected areas to enter quarantine until we could be assured that the risk of further community transmission was low. I thank all those ACT residents who responded and complied with that direction on return from their travel.
As members would also be aware, the Perth metropolitan area, and the Peel and South West regions of Western Australia entered a five-day lockdown on 31 January after a new case of COVID-19 was recorded in a hotel quarantine worker. The ACT again responded quickly by implementing new restrictions for people travelling to the ACT from these affected areas. A public health direction came into effect at 2 pm on 1 February, declaring the Perth metropolitan area and the Peel and South West regions of Western Australia as COVID-19-affected areas. The direction required anyone who had been in these areas since 25 January to immediately quarantine and get tested for COVID-19. In addition, people were required to remain in quarantine until 5 February, even if they returned a negative result. Restrictions relating to Western Australia were eased with effect from 6 pm on 5 February.
Locally I am pleased to report that the ACT has continued to do well in suppressing COVID-19. There continues to be no evidence of community transmission in the ACT, despite the recent higher rates of testing we have seen, and despite the risk associated with people returning from COVID-affected areas.
Since my last update to the Assembly, on 2 December 2020, the ACT recorded one new case of COVID-19, on 20 December. The positive case was a commonwealth
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