Queenslanders have been warned to expect more COVID-19 cases as residents in the southeast wait to hear if their lockdown will end.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young will review Sunday's case numbers before deciding if she can safely lift the region's eight-day lockdown as planned, at 4pm.
That's looking increasingly likely if Sunday's results mirror those of the past few days.
While cases have continued to grow, all new infections have been linked to the Indooroopilly cluster, and most if not all new cases have been isolating while infectious.
Queensland recorded 13 new locally acquired cases on Saturday, all associated with the schools at Indooroopilly, Spring Hill, and St Lucia on the northern side of the Brisbane River.
All were in isolation while infectious.
Three are linked to a karate club that trains at Indooroopilly State High School, and four are household contacts linked to cases at the high school.
Five others are household contacts linked to Ironside State School, and one is a close contact associated with Brisbane Boys Grammar School.
There are now 102 cases linked to the so-called Indooroopilly cluster.
Dr Young has warned others will emerge among the more than 10,000 people currently in home quarantine.
Some families face extended periods in isolation as the virus jumps from one member to the next, resetting the two-week quarantine clock each time.
"This is going to be a lengthy time for some of those people, because as each person in the household becomes positive, quarantine then extends for another 14 days from that point," Dr Young said on Saturday.
"It is absolutely critical that no-one from any of those households goes out into the community."
With case numbers in NSW hitting a record of 319 on Saturday, Queensland police have repeated warnings that anyone crossing the border will face intense scrutiny.
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath expressed her disgust after two paramedics were forced into isolation after coming into contact with an unauthorised arrival from NSW.
"If you turn up at the border without the proper exemptions you will end up in hotel quarantine," she told would-be travellers from NSW and Victoria.
Meanwhile, police have caught a woman who escaped from a quarantine hotel on the Gold Coast on Tuesday.
Officers say she had been in a COVID-19 hotspot in NSW before she illegally entered Queensland.
She was caught at Caboolture, north of Brisbane on Saturday, after a tip off from the public.
Dr Young hopes the risk is low because the woman returned a negative test before she escaped from the hotel by forcing open a glass door.
Meanwhile, two people have copped hefty fines after they left lockdown in the southeast corner and travelled to Mackay to attend a party.
In the regional city of Rockhampton, there are encouraging signs the virus has not been widely transmitted after an infected woman travelled there for work.
All her close contacts have so far tested negative, five days into their quarantine period.
But Dr Young is less comfortable about the situation in Cairns, where a reef pilot was recently active in the community while infectious.
She wants anyone who is unwell in the Cairns area to immediately get tested so she can be more confident the virus isn't spreading unchecked there.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is due to be released from hotel quarantine on Sunday morning after she returned a final negative test following her trip to Tokyo for the Olympics.
There were 40,835 tests carried out in Queensland in the 24 hours to 6am Saturday, and police patrolling the border intercepted more than 10,000 vehicles.
Australian Associated Press
