There’s been calls for “patience and planning” from Queensland authorities ahead of the state’s border reopening on Monday.
Meanwhile, Katherine residents are waiting to hear from NT authorities about whether the town’s lockdown will lift at midday tomorrow as planned.
Follow our live blog below for all of Tuesday’s updates.
Live updates
By Dannielle Maguire
Pinned
By Dannielle Maguire
Queensland’s Premier: We wanted to give certainty
Annastacia Palaszczuk is speaking appearing on ABC News Breakfast right now.
She says yesterday’s border announcement came ahead of the state reaching the 80 per cent double-dose vaccination rate because the government wanted to give people the certainty they needed to plan their Christmas holidays.
By Dannielle Maguire
By Dannielle Maguire
Katherine’s wait for lockdown news
Meanwhile, in the NT, residents in Katherine are likely to hear if the town’s lockdown will lift tomorrow as planned.
Yesterday, the lockdown was extended until midday tomorrow after a three-year-old girl tested positive for COVID-19.
She and her seven household contacts are all in isolation, with contact tracers trying to work out where the three-year-old picked up the virus.
The cluster currently stands at 61.
By Dannielle Maguire
Heading to Queensland? Better pack some patience
You might need a few straps and even a tarp to cart the load of patience it sounds like you’re going to need to cross over into the Sunshine State.
While borders will be open to fully vaccinated people as of 1:00am Monday, police will be meeting travellers to check their border passes and make sure they’ve had a negative COVID-19 test in the 72 hours prior to arriving.
The big message out of yesterday’s press conference announcing the easing of border restrictions was to “plan ahead and pack your patience”.
Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said she was expecting “extensive delays” at border crossings.
“We always find, when we move the border declarations a little bit, it does take us a couple of days to get things moving smoothly,” she said.
Commissioner Carroll said people should make sure their border passes are clearly displayed and suggested people travel at off-peak times to avoid long queues.
By Dannielle Maguire
Gooood morning!
Welcome to the launch of today’s COVID blog, one of the greatest blogs of our time.
Except for yesterday’s, and the day’s before that and Saturday’s blog wasn’t bad either.
What I mean is, thanks for coming to one of the top… 30,000 COVID blogs of our time.
