Sydney CBD exclusion zone in place for Saturday, NSW COVID cases grow; CDC Delta variant report labels virus more contagious than chickenpox; Sydney lockdown continues; Victoria COVID cases grow

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young urged everyone in the restricted areas to stay home unless it was absolutely critical.

On Friday, a 17-year-old student at Indooroopilly State High School in Brisbane’s inner west tested positive for COVID-19.

She was tested after becoming unwell on Thursday and was deemed to have been infectious in the community since Tuesday, having attended the school for two days.

Dr Young said contact tracers were working through the connections to the school, adding that the medical student had “been to a lot of venues”.

Indooroopilly State High School in Brisbane’s inner-west has been listed as a close contact exposure site after a 17-year-old student’s COVID-19 infection, so far unlinked, was reported on Friday.

Three of Queensland’s latest COVID ‘incursions’ still not linked to a source.

“She has been to a lot of venues, a lot of places, at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, at the University of Queensland, at the Translational Research Institute [at the Princess Alexandra Hospital], and also she has a sibling who works in a hospital,” she said.

The school will remain closed for up to two weeks, with Education Minister Grace Grace saying all students and staff who were at the school on the morning of Tuesday, July 27, and all day Wednesday, July 28, must isolate at home during the fortnight.

A COVID-19 testing site was set up at the school and will operate from 8am on Saturday for staff and student contacts.

The University of Southern Queensland’s Springfield campus, west of Brisbane, also closed after three university staff attended an event at the school on Thursday.