Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
Sign up here for our daily coronavirus newsletter on what you need to know, and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and analysis.
Sydney’s 5 million residents are urged to curb activities in the coming days to prevent a coronavirus outbreak from sparking closed state borders and threatening to disrupt Christmas festivities.
A new health mandate from Monday restricts meetings at homes and entertainment venues in the metropolis of Sydney for at least three days, while New South Wales state health officials work to uncover the source and include a growing cluster of 83 people.
“We’re on an abyss,” said Marylouise McLaws, professor of epidemiology, hospital infection and infectious disease control at the University of New South Wales. A seven-day, Sydney-wide “stay at home” order may be needed to stop the spread of the virus, and it would be wise for residents to limit the holidays if they didn’t cancel them entirely, she said.
An empty Wynyard station in Sydney on December 19. Authorities are still trying to identify the source of the Sydney cluster.
Photographer: James D. Morgan / Getty Images
Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosafety at the university, said Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve pose significant risks for increased transmission when people travel through suburbs and hold family gatherings.
“If we don’t prevent that chain of events, we could be looking at thousands of cases in January,” she said, adding that face masks should be made mandatory in confined indoor spaces such as shopping malls.
Australia has been at the forefront of countries that have managed to suppress SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the past, keeping the total number of reported Covid-19 cases at less than 29,000, including 908 dead since the outbreak of the pandemic. This has been done through rigorous testing and contact tracking, and by closing the international border – forcing all returning foreign travelers to isolate in quarantine hotels for 14 days.
Authorities are still trying to trace the source of the Sydney cluster, but previous outbreaks in the states of Victoria and South Australia have been linked to breaches at quarantine hotels that saw the virus leak into the community.
Fifteen locally acquired Covid-19 cases were reported Monday, all linked to the Avalon cluster in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, New South Wales State Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian said. But potential carriers of the coronavirus have visited dozens of sites in Sydney, raising concerns that the virus could be widespread in Australia’s most populous city.
Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia imposed border restrictions and quarantine measures to prevent travelers from metropolitan Sydney or surrounding areas from spreading the virus, while Western Australia restricted access to anyone from New South Wales.
Shares in Australian travel and leisure-related companies fell amid news of border restrictions and concerns about a wider lockdown in Sydney could hamper summer vacation plans. Qantas Airways Ltd., which had added flights to and from Sydney in the run-up to Christmas, fell a whopping 6.3%, while Flight Center Travel Group Ltd. sank a whopping 7.1%.
Australian travel stocks ravaged amid the Sydney virus outbreak
Victoria, which has not reported community-acquired Covid-19 cases for 51 days, will deploy 700 police officers at border controls, Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said.
The Covid hotspot in Sydney encourages the closure of northern beaches
No singing
Household gatherings in the metropolis of Sydney are limited to 10 attendees until at least 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, the New South Wales health department said. Indoor settings, including hangouts and places of worship, are limited to one person per 4 square meters (43 square feet), with a maximum of 300 people. Singing and chanting in indoor locations is also prohibited.
Stay-at-home orders for approximately 250,000 residents in the Northern Beaches local government area also continue until midnight Wednesday. The region includes the popular coastal district of Manly and Palm Beach, which has been home to the Australian television soap “Home and Away” since 1988.
A “crisis cabinet” on Wednesday will decide whether the Northern Beaches will face a Christmas freeze, Health Minister Brad Hazzard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Monday. Sydney is continuing its plans for New Year’s Eve, but has been reviewing the situation daily, he said.
– With the help of Angus Whitley, Tim Smith, Matthew Burgess and Jason Scott
(Updates with the latest infections)