Health authorities are taking a wait-and-see approach ahead of a decision over whether lockdown restrictions would ease in south-east Queensland tomorrow.
Mask wearing, high testing and a drop in the number of people with COVID-19 being out in the community were key factors being considered before a decision would be made on easing restrictions.
Currently 11 local government areas in the region are subject to a lockdown due to end at 4:00pm tomorrow, to bring an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant that spread through Brisbane school communities under control.
The latest figures take the Indooroopilly cluster to 89, which includes 57 people aged 19 or under.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said she was hopeful an extension of the lockdown that began last Saturday afternoon would not be necessary.
But she said Queenslanders needed to keep following the health directives to give her confidence lockdown could be safely lifted.
"We've got to keep it up for the next few days. We are not there yet,'' she said yesterday.
"It's those things that will keep us safe and enable us hopefully — and I am genuinely hopeful — that we will be able to lift this [the lockdown] on Sunday.
"But if we don't do all those things then it will make it really difficult to lift on Sunday."
Five schools are connected to the cluster, which includes 48 students and four teachers.
The spread of the virus forced more than 8,500 people into home quarantine, including 400 health workers.
'Cautious' path out of lockdown
However, Dr Young flagged a gradual winding back of restrictions on Sunday and did not rule out Queenslanders, including children, having to wear masks possibly through until Christmas.
"Going forward we are going to have to be incredibly cautious,'' she said.
"We have seen what happens in other states, we know the Delta variant is a completely different variant to the one we were dealing with last year.
"It's very confusing for people, but we can't use the same strategies we used last year. We've really got to ramp them up."
Dr Young said masks were "just so critical" with the Delta variant.
She did not rule out older primary school children being included in mask wearing rules.
'We just need to keep it up'
Yesterday authorities were encouraged Queensland recorded only 10 new cases of COVID-19 over the previous 24 hours.
All these cases were locally acquired household contacts that could be linked to the Indooroopilly State High School Delta cluster.
Only two of those people were infectious in the community and only for one day each.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles praised Queenslanders but cautioned that restrictions could only ease if cases continued to decline and high testing rates continued.
"We just need to keep it up," he said.
"We need to continue to see low case numbers all linked, declining infectious days in the community and a high rate of testing.
"And if we can keep that up, then we will be able to begin to ease these restrictions."
About 48,000 Queenslanders were tested on Thursday.
