Darwin lockout extended as police hunt for man who evaded airport checkpoints

Northern Territory Police are on the hunt for a man who flew from Sydney to Darwin today, allegedly running through border checkpoints to evade authorities.

Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker said officers were attempting to track down the person, who has come from a COVID-19 hotspot into the Territory.

The news comes as the lockout in greater Darwin has been extended until midnight Tuesday over potential unknown close contacts to a confirmed COVID-19 case.

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Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the 21-year-old source case of the Darwin outbreak has been co-operative with health authorities, but has taken time to corroborate her story.

"We are now confident we have identified, isolated and tested all of the known close contacts. By that the contacts that she knew and spent time with," Mr Gunner said.

"However, we believe there may be unknown close contacts and we're particularly concerned with doing more contact tracing work on the (hotel) exposure site."

The Darwin cluster stands at three confirmed COVID-19 cases.

While there are no new cases of COVID-19 in the territory, authorities are concerned about the four hours the source COVID-19 case spent at Noonamah Tavern on Melbourne Cup Day between 2.12pm and 6.17pm.

Meanwhile, the lockdown for Katherine will be lifted at 5pm today, however a mask mandate will continue until Friday.