Queensland reinstalls hard border closure over NSW Covid cluster
Queensland has reintroduced a hard border with NSW to stop the spread of a coronavirus cluster just days before Christmas.
NSW reported 15 more cases linked to a Covid-19 cluster on Sydney’s Northern Beaches on Monday, taking the total to 83.
This latest announcement from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk comes after Queensland declared anyone from Greater Sydney or the Northern Beaches had to go into a mandatory 14 days of hotel quarantine when entering the state from 1am (AEST) on Monday.
But Ms Palaszczuk told reporters on Monday despite the strict rules people were still breaching them and “being turned around”.
“So there will be a hard border closure which will be going in place,” she said.
“People started to see barricades going up again this afternoon and by 6am tomorrow (Tuesday) it will be back to the strong border measures that we have seen in Queensland.”
The premier added “unfortunately” people were doing “the wrong thing”.
The hard border news comes just hours after NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian pleaded with her counterparts not to subject millions of Aussies to a heartbreaking Christmas.
“Every response has to be proportionate to the risk. And all I'm saying to colleagues around the country is please think about the heartbreak and please think about the facts when you're making these decisions because it impacts so many people,” she said.
“It impacts not just people in New South Wales, but people in your home states that may not have been reunited with family or friends or significant others for a long period of time.”
When will the hard border with NSW come down?
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said the border will come down once NSW goes 28 days without any community transmission.
“The good news at this point is that all the cases in New South Wales that has been announced, 83 this morning, have been linked to the first event that happened in those two areas,” she said.
Queensland reopened its borders to NSW on December 1 before closing them again.
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