The lifting of Queensland's hard border closure with Greater Sydney will depend on whether the source of one COVID case in NSW can be found.
A western Sydney driver tested positive for COVID-19 on December 15, and Queensland has outlined guidelines of a 28-day time frame between unlinked cases and the easing of border restrictions.
"So that person became positive, initially it was thought from one of the cases that he had driven from the airport to the health hotel, but no genomic sequencing has shown that he has actually got the Avalon cluster genome," Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said.
"He is an unlinked case at this stage, if that remains unlinked, it will be 28 days from that date before we could open."
Previously the Queensland government stated the border closure excluding arrivals from Greater Sydney would be in place until at least January 8.
If the case cannot be linked, it may not lift until January 13.
Queensland police have reassured the public that measures are in place to allow emergency vehicle access across the border.
Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler said commentary that access was prohibited on Nerang Murwillumbah Rd and Tomewin Mountain Rd was false.
"That is completely untrue, the people who are saying these things are either not being truthful or they're not informed," he said.
"Emergency service vehicles do have access, there's a method to do that that which we've shared with all of our emergency services counterparts across the border."
On Wednesday, the peak delay on the M1 Highway was 90 minutes at about 3pm and further resources from the SES and police have been recruited to assist with processing vehicles.
A total of 159 cars have been turned away since the start of the border operation and almost 380,000 applications for border passes have been made.
On Wednesday, federal Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud said Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had rejected his request for local councils on the border to be reimbursed for costs associated with the closure.
"Those councils expended hundreds of thousands of dollars each in terms of the infrastructure to support those border closures," he said.
"They don't have thousands upon thousands of ratepayers in which to absorb this. In fact, one of them has only around 100 ratepayers and they're being asked to spend this money for the Queensland government."
