Four cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Canberra as lockdown begins

It brings the total caseload to four, after it was announced on Thursday morning that a man in his 20s was infectious in the community for four days.

All the new cases are close contacts of the initial case.

ACT chief health officer Kerryn Coleman said there were nine known close contacts of the man, including the three who had tested positive.

The source of the virus is currently unknown.

ACT Health said investigations into the new cases were under way.

"We will provide further information, including new exposure locations, once we have further information from the case investigations that are currently taking place," a statement read.

"This will likely be in tomorrow's COVID-19 update."

The cases will be included in Friday's case figures.

The ACT has entered a snap seven-day lockdown to get on top of the outbreak.

The first case of a man in his 20s visited a large number of venues while infected, including locations in Fyshwick, Braddon, Manuka, Mitchell, Cook, Kingston, Civic and Woden.

Dr Coleman said the seven-day "pause" was needed to allow contact tracers to get on top of the situation.

"We need to be able to collect that information we need to be able to work through the situation," she said.

"We need to be able to get everybody to stop moving around and see if we can knock this on the head as early as we possibly can."

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