Health Minister Yvette D’Ath has explained the current three-day lockdown has been implemented in an effort to assist contact tracers.

Ms D’Ath said the short window will allow Queensland Health “to trace, to test, and also to get people who are symptomatic in the community getting tests and getting their results back.”

Ms D’Ath said the situation is being reassessed on an ongoing hourly basis and therefore, she could not say whether the lockdown would definitely be lifted on Monday.

“There’s a lot of hypotheticals,” she told Luke Grant.

“Best case scenario, we get to 6pm on Monday and we’ve had no additional community cases and it means we can start moving out of restrictions much quicker.

“Worst case scenario, we’re seeing broad community transmission and looking at everything that could be in between.

“It’s not just about the numbers of cases; it’s also about whether we can trace every one of those, whether there’s seeding happening.”

Press PLAY below to hear the full interview.