Canberra - Australia's third-most-populous state of Queensland
opened its internal border after a 15-week lockdown on Friday, with
travellers stuck for hours in long traffic jams at checkpoints.
Queensland police have told travellers to pack food and water and to
expect major delays over the next 72 hours, as 20-kilometre-long
traffic jams formed at several checkpoints.
"Patience will definitely be a virtue today," Queensland's Premier
Annastacia Palaszczuk told ABC radio on Friday.
Queensland in Australia's north-east is a gateway to several major
tourist destinations, including the iconic Great Barrier Reef, which
is visited by more than 2 million visitors each year.
School holidays in neighbouring New South Wales are starting, which
is expected to form a large part of the influx of visitors.
Also, thousands of grey nomads - retired travellers from the north
who holiday in caravans or motorhomes to escape the southern winter -
are waiting at the border to enter Queensland.
Grey nomads comprise up to 70 percent of bookings at caravan parks,
according to Tourism Australia.
However, people from coronavirus-hit Victoria are banned to enter.
"I hate to say that, but it's as long as it takes until the community
transmission there is under control," Palaszczuk told Channel Nine.
Victoria recorded 288 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the biggest
daily increase in Australia since the pandemic began, Premier Daniel
Andrews said.
Most of the cases are from Melbourne, where there has been a massive
spike in Covid-19 cases for the past three weeks, forcing the city
back into a strict lockdown.