Karlie Brady

Journalist

The Sunshine State will close to thousands more Sydneysiders after Queensland declared another six Local Government Areas as hotspots just days out from school holidays.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced from 1:00am tomorrow, Thursday 24 June the City of Sydney, Woollahra, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West, and Randwick will be COVID-19 hotspots.

The LGA of Waverley also remains a declared hotspot.

“Anyone entering Queensland who has been in any of these areas within the past 14 days must go into hotel quarantine.

“Non-Queensland residents will need an exemption to enter Queensland,” she said.

All travellers to Queensland must complete a Queensland Travel Declaration before entering the state.

Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young will continue to monitor the situation with the possibility of more hotspots being added if the situation in NSW worsens.

It comes as Sydney recorded another 13 cases overnight and exposure sites increased significantly.

Dr Young said it was critical Queenslanders reconsider travel to Wollongong and Greater Sydney.

“I know this is difficult timing with school holidays coming up, but my priority is to ensure the health and safety of Queenslanders,” Dr Young said.

“The recent cases in Sydney are very concerning due to many of these cases being infected by fleeting contact. The number of exposure sites is also rapidly increasing, with more than 120 exposure sites currently listed.

“The Delta variant is much more contagious than other variants and we do not want it circulating in Queensland.

“There may be more people in Sydney that have been infected and we must protect Queenslanders from the risk of COVID-19 as much as possible.

“The hotspot declaration will not be backdated. It will apply to anyone that has been in the hotspot locations on or after 1am tomorrow,” she said.

However, there is some good news for the tourism industry with the Premier yesterday announcing Greater Melbourne will no longer be declared a hotspot from 1:00am Friday 25 June, just in time for school holidays.

Travellers from Victoria must complete a Queensland Travel Declaration but will not be required to hotel quarantine.

Meanwhile, health authorities are investigating how the virus spread across rooms in hotel quarantine at the Novotel Brisbane Airport earlier this month.

Dr Young said the transmission occurred between returned travellers in two adjacent rooms on the fifth floor.

"At the time, we thought it was just overseas acquired, but now that I've got the genome sequencing back it's clear that the first person has given it to the other two," she said.

"We're contacting all of the 30 people on floor five and anyone who left quarantine during the period that I'm concerned about.

Premier Palaszczuk said “we will be doing an investigation in relation to that matter.

“We cannot afford to have this Delta variant in our community.”