Australia lifts Brisbane lockdown ahead of Easter weekend

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced that the capital city Brisbane will exit its lockdown restrictions on Thursday.

CAPE TOWN, April 1 (ANA) – Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced in a televised press briefing that the capital city Brisbane will exit its lockdown restrictions on Thursday.

According to the BBC, the country’s third-biggest city reported a low number of new infections, which led to the easing of regulations. However, wearing masks in public and physical distancing measures will still apply.

While churches have been given the go-ahead to operate at full capacity, dancing at public venues remains banned and gatherings at households are limited to 30 people.

“The lockdown has been lifted, but we’re not out of the woods yet, so I’m asking Queenslanders for the next two weeks if we all do the right thing, we can get through this together,” said Palaszczuk.

“You only have to see what is happening around the world… we don’t want to see that here,” she said.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on Wednesday that the country was 3.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses short of its initial vaccination target.

Australia had planned on delivering four million vaccinations by March 31, but authorities claimed the roll-out was not urgent, due to the low infection rate.

Sporadic outbreaks in various parts of the country have led to six lockdowns over the past months, with critics suggesting a vaccine roll-out is still needed.

“Over the last week, 120,000 vaccines have been administered by our GPs as part of a broader national roll-out,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said in a press release on the Department of Health’s website on Monday.

“An extraordinary achievement was that despite the flood, despite the inclement weather last week, every practice that was due to receive the vaccines did receive the vaccines,” he said.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher