QUEENSLAND'S borders will close to Greater Melbourne at 1am tomorrow as the coronavirus cluster associated with the Holiday Inn continues to grow.
It comes as the entire state of Victoria will be plunged into a hard five-day lockdown from 11.59pm tonight in a bid to reduce the risk of community transmission.
While the 13 people who have been infected with the virus are all either associated with the Holiday Inn, or are close contacts, there are fears the highly contagious UK variant of the virus is already circulating undetected in the community.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said Queensland's borders would close in response to Victoria's lockdown.
"From 1am Saturday will close the Queensland border to people who have been in Greater Melbourne for a period 14 days," Mr Miles said.
"That's the same 36 local government areas that were included last time we declared Greater Melbourne to be a hotspot."
But with all of Victoria in lockdown, people from the entire state are unlikely to be able to travel to Queensland for the next five days, as it is not an approved reason for people to leave their residences.
Police are urging anyone in Victoria wanting to travel to Queensland to get online and fill out a border declaration pass, which would give them an indication as to if they were exempt.
People who provide misleading information will face a fine up to $4000.
Meanwhile, about 1500 people who travelled to Queensland from terminal four at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport on Tuesday, February 9 are being told to quarantine after a cafe worker associated with the Holiday Inn cluster tested positive last night.
Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Sonya Bennett said three new cases associated with the Holiday Inn, including the airport cafe worker, had tested positive overnight.
"Those cases are all linked to the Holiday Inn or close contacts of those cases, but what we're seeing is with each extra case associated with the outbreak it adds extra infectious day in the community, while we haven't seen what we'd call a community transmission yet, we do expect to see community transmission," Dr Bennett said.
"When one of those cases was found to be infectious at the domestic airport on Tuesday that of course leads to a whole other response requiring the identification and contacting of around 1500 people who've travelled through that terminal to Queensland on that day who'll be required to quarantine for 14 days until further notice."
Dr Bennett said anyone in Queensland who had been at Melbourne's domestic terminal four on Tuesday would be contacted in coming days to determine their risk.
She said people could still transit through Melbourne Airport, so long as they didn't go out into Greater Melbourne, and the quarantine warning was confined to people who had been there on Tuesday, February 9.
