In a small update to the Queensland Health website on Thursday,the department clarified unvaccinated people would still be able to access “essential services and activities” including grocery stores,post offices,newsagents,clothing stores and gyms.

People without both jabs will also be able to enter food courts and shopping centres,order and collect takeaway food,visit bottle shops and community markets,along with unticketed outdoor events such as New Year’s fireworks displays.

Unvaccinated workers providing a contactless service,such as food delivery drivers,can enter restricted businesses as part of their work. But service providers working within venues,such as pub security guards,will need to be fully vaccinated except for situations where emergency maintenance work is required.

The department is still working through how to implement restrictions for local government facilities and allow people to provide proof of medical exemptions.

Mater Health infectious diseases expert Paul Griffin said he believed the plan needed to be carefully considered,but did not necessarily need an end date provided support for those with genuine exemptions existed.

Dr Griffin said the measures could mean that when widespread transmission occurred – which state-commissioned modelling suggests couldpeak above 1000 daily cases by mid-2022,push hospital capacity andresult in hundreds of deaths – parts of the economy could remain open.

While Victoria and NSW,which will ease restrictions on unvaccinated peoplefrom a 95 per cent double-dose rate,were using the measure to exit outbreaks,Queensland was in an “amazing,enviable position” to be prepared before that happened.

Former Queensland chief health officer and emergency medicine expert Gerard FitzGerald,now based at the Queensland University of Technology,said the virus was going to spread throughout the state next year “and there’s probably very little we can do to stop that”.

“So it would be wise to retain some measures to slow down the spread of it,to protect the elderly and vulnerable and most people with chronic diseases,and to reduce the rate of sick people to protect their health system,” he said.

Politicians and business figures including Queensland-based federal LNP MP Luke Howarth have labelled the plan “segregation”. While state Labor frontbencher Craig Crawford has called for a Cairns councillor to resign after he likened the rules to “apartheid”.

Leading pandemic advisers warning against Victoria’s plan to shut out unvaccinated people older than 11 from all but basic services until 2023 have suggested amore nuanced approach to vaccine passport system going forward,including incorporating a negative test status into digital COVID certificates.

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