Queensland’s current Covid-19 outbreak added 10 cases at Friday’s Covid update.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the new cases were all linked to the original Indooroopilly cluster.
The new cases bring the number of cases in the current outbreak to 89.
Five cases are household contacts of Ironside State School cases.
Three are household contacts of Indooroopilly State High School and two are household contacts of Brisbane Boys’ Grammar School cases.
Eight of the cases were not infectious in the community.
Two further cases were infectious in the community for one day but during the lockdown period.
‘We need to continue to see low case numbers all linked, declining infectious days in the community and a high rate of testing and if we can keep that up, then we will be able to begin to ease these restrictions,’ Deputy Premier Steven Miles said.
Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said: ‘Hopefully, and I genuinely am hopeful that we will be able to lift [lockdown] this on Sunday.’
‘There will still be restrictions, there always are restrictions after you remove a lockdown,’ Dr Young said. “But the specifics of those restrictions, I just need to see how things track over the next few days.’
The new cases came as some Brisbane residents joined long queues for the opening of an acclaimed pastry retailer in South Brisbane.
The pastry fans were pictured outside the Lune Croissanterie store in South Brisbane as staff opened its doors for the first time on Thursday morning.
At one point the queue stretched for more than 350m down Manning Street and around the block.
Brisbane residents queueing outside Lune Croissanterie store in South Brisbane on Friday morning. The popular bakery from Melbourne opened the doors of its first Brisbane outlet on Thursday morning
Locked-down Brisbane residents wait in a long queue outside Lune Croissanterie store in South Brisbane. Police patrolled the street to ensure customers were wearing masks and social distancing at its Thursday opening
People in Brisbane leaves with their Lune Croissanterie goodies. The current lockdown in south-east Queensland is due to end this Sunday at 4pm
Lune’s co-founder Kate Reid said staff were told to give customers outside the Brisbane branch clear instructions about social distancing requirements.
‘We’ve got staff stationed down the line setting the expectation of how customers will need to interact with the line in order to get served,’ she said.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said Queensland conducted the second highest number of vaccines in the country yesterday.
The Covid outbreak in Queensland, its worst since the onset of the pandemic last year, began with the case of a 17-year-old schoolgirl at Indooroopilly State High School, with subsequent cases genomically linked to this cluster.
Seven Brisbane schools had since been caught up in the outbreak.
Brisbane Girls Grammar School confirmed another student had tested positive on Thursday night, increasing the school’s number of cases to three.
A parent linked to Brisbane Grammar School also tested positive, growing that school’s cluster to eight students, two teachers and two parents.
More than 5,800 people associated with the Indooroopilly cluster are now subject to quarantine orders.
Deputy Premier Steve Miles said on Thursday it was too early to predict whether 11 south-east Queensland LGAs would emerge from lockdown this Sunday
Health care workers are seen testing members of the public at a pop-up Covid-19 testing clinic at Indooroopilly State High School in Brisbane on Thursday
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young flagged the idea of children under 12 wearing masks at Thursday’s Covid update
The number of children infected in the current outbreak saw Dr Young suggest on Thursday that children under 12 may be forced to wear masks.
‘Most places only require masks from the age of 12 and that’s what we have always done here in Queensland,’ Dr Young said.
‘But we are looking if it’s possible to do it for younger [people].
‘For a start we will have to look at different masks… these masks wouldn’t be any use because they are too big.
‘There’s a whole range of things that we need to look at before we could do it, but yes we are definitely looking at.’
Children infected by the Delta variant are being treated in the the Gold Coast University Hospital, the Royal Brisbane and Women’s, Prince Charles and Sunshine Coast University hospitals.
‘We do have a of children in hospital, but they are not particularly unwell,’ Dr Young said on Thursday.
‘But they need to be in hospital and thank goodness we have got the Children’s Hospital which is one of the best hospitals in Australia for children
‘I’m very confident that we can manage them there or in one of those other hospitals that have now had a lot of experience in managing COVID in children.’
On Thursday Mr Miles said it was ‘too early’ to predict whether the lockdown could be lifted on Sunday.
‘My absolute focus is on doing what we need to do today and tomorrow and Saturday to hopefully be able to lift the lockdown on Sunday, that is the goal right now,’ he said.
Mr Miles said a delivery of Pfizer vaccines allocated to Queensland would be brought forward from September to August.
‘They are not additional vaccines but they will allow for Queensland Health to do more vaccinations in August,’ he said.
There are now almost 200 COVID-19 exposure sites for close and casual contact across southeast, central and far north Queensland.
People line up outside a vaccination clinic at the Logan Entertainment Centre south of Brisbane on Wednesday
Ironside State School in St Lucia is one of a number of Brisbane schools caught up in Queensland’s worst Covid outbreak since mid-2020