An unvaccinated concierge who worked outside a coronavirus ward at a Brisbane hospital and then flew to Townsville for a holiday has helped plunge parts of Queensland into a snap lockdown.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was livid on Tuesday as she told Queenslanders in the southeast, Townsville and nearby Magnetic and Palm islands they would have to stay home from 6pm on Tuesday.
She said the lockdown was unavoidable after two new cases of community transmission, including a casual clerical worker who worked two shifts outside Prince Charles Hospital's COVID ward last week despite not being vaccinated.
On Thursday the 19-year-old and her family left their Sandgate home and went to Brisbane airport where they boarded a flight to Townsville and visited the city's busy Sunday markets and Magnetic Island.
They flew home again Sunday and the woman tested positive on Monday. One of her close friends and two of the four family members she lives with are now sick and awaiting tests.
"I'm absolutely furious about this," the premier told reporters and promised a full investigation.
"Despite the health directives that she should have been vaccinated, she was not."
It's not yet certain if the woman picked up the virus at the hospital, or elsewhere. Authorities are waiting on genomic sequencing to determine if she has the highly-contagious Delta variant, or the Alpha variant.
The second case of community transmission reported on Tuesday was one of the 170 miners who returned to Queensland from a Northern Territory mine where the Delta strain has been circulating.
He is the second from that cohort of 170 workers to test positive but has been isolating since very soon after returning home to Ipswich. He is considered relatively low risk, Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has said.
Dr Young says the state is now battling coronavirus on four fronts - the miners from the Northern Territory, Virgin Australia flights that arrived in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast with an infected crew member onboard, the cluster linked to the Portuguese Family Centre, and the case involving the hospital worker.
Dr Young said the young woman worked as a concierge in the section of the hospital were COVID patients are treated and she had interaction with two other concierge workers and a cleaner.
Meanwhile, the premier has repeated calls for an immediate, dramatic cut to overseas arrivals saying the are bringing the virus into Australia where it leaks from the hotel quarantine system.
She said that until a large proportion of Queenslanders are vaccinated "we should massively reduce the number of returning Australians".
Only cases of genuine hardship should be allowed in, she said, and while that was a tough call she said the risks of inaction were just too great.
"I know this is going to be tough for a lot of families. I don't want to see people end up in our hospitals on ventilators."
She and Victorian Premier Dan Andrews both raised the issue at national cabinet on Monday and want greater use of the Howard Springs quarantine centre in the Northern Territory.
Mr Andrews said cutting arrivals would be a temporary measure until Australia hits its "magic number" of vaccinations, "... 70 or 80 per cent - and then we could look at it again".
Queenslanders have been told to keep following official health advice after the prime minister announced on Monday that people aged under 60 can get the AstraZeneca vaccine if they are willing to accept the very low risk of an associated blood clotting disorder.
The premier and Dr Young have told people to heed the clinical advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, which says anyone aged under 60 should preferentially get Pfizer.
Queensland's partial lockdown begins at 6pm on Tuesday and will lift at 6pm on Friday, unless the situation worsens.
It covers residents of Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley, the Scenic Rim, the Gold Coast, Townsville, Magnetic Island and nearby Palm Island.
Residents in those areas will only be allowed to leave home to shop for essential items, exercise, or receive or give medical care.
© AAP 2021