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SYDNEY: Australian states and territories began imposing border restrictions on Friday (December 18) after 28 COVID-19 cases were detected in a cluster on Sydney’s North Beaches, fearing the number of infections.
“Everyone in the greater Sydney area should be on high alert,” New South Wales (NSW) State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at a press conference on Friday announcing 10 new cases.
Health authorities fear the group has spread to other areas of Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, as they have yet to determine the source of the infections.
NSW has urged roughly a quarter of a million residents in affected Sydney suburbs to stay home for three days.
“My anxiety is that we have not found the direct transmission route and we cannot be sure that we have blocked the transmission line,” said Kerry Chant, NSW’s director of health.
Authorities believe the initial broadcast sites were two clubs on Avalon Beach, but have named more than 30 potential subsequent broadcast sites, from banks and post offices to supermarkets and pharmacies, and have advised people who have visited the sites. get tested.
Hospitals in affected suburbs and emerging test sites have been flooded with many people waiting hours to get tested.
The main public facilities in the northern beach area, such as swimming pools and playgrounds, have been closed, and the entry of visitors to the facilities for the care of the elderly has been prohibited.
READ: Australia reports first local COVID-19 case in 2 weeks after airport worker tested positive
READ: Australia rushes to trace COVID-19 source after small group found in Sydney
CHRISTMAS TRAVEL CHAOS
New border restrictions threw the Christmas travel plans of thousands of people into chaos on Friday.
Many people flocked to the Sydney airport to try to leave the state for fear of severe border closures. Some travelers leaving New South Wales were placed in immediate hotel quarantine for 14 days when they landed in another state.
The state of Queensland and the Northern Territory require that people who have been to the northern beaches be quarantined for 14 days. The state of Western Australia imposed this on anyone from New South Wales. While the island state of Tasmania and the state of Victoria banned people who had visited the northern beaches of Sydney since December 10.
“My very clear message is that if people are from the northern beaches of NSW, it would be advisable for them to stay on the northern beaches and not travel to Queensland,” said Queensland State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
The backlog and subsequent travel chaos affect Australia’s streak of success in containing COVID-19.
As of this week, Australia had gone more than two weeks without local transmission, allowing most states and territories to remove almost all barriers to social distancing.
READ: Australia’s New South Wales state says work from home is over, but employees still avoid the office
Such was the optimism that Australia projected on Thursday that its economy will recover from its first recession in three decades faster than anticipated, after containing the spread of COVID-19.
Australia’s hopes for a rampant economic recovery, led by domestic tour operators such as Virgin Australia and Qantas Airways, now seem unlikely.
“We have dealt with this before, we will deal with it again, it is important that people remain calm on these issues,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. “There is no magic formula that will make the pandemic just go away.”
Australia has reported just over 28,000 coronavirus cases and 908 deaths since the pandemic began and estimates that the majority of active cases in the country are returned by foreign travelers in hotel quarantine.
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