Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams / Bloomberg
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5 million Sydney residents are being urged to block activity over the next few days to prevent a coronavirus outbreak that has closed state borders and is threatening ceremonies Scratching Christmas.
A new health order from Monday is restricting gatherings in homes and entertainment venues across the Sydney metropolitan area for at least three days, while New South Wales state health officials work to find the source and includes a collection of 83 people.
“We are on a precipice,” he said Marylouise McLaws, professor of epidemiology, hospital infection and infectious disease control at the University of New South Wales. A seven-day, “stay at home” order in Sydney may be required to catch the spread of the virus, and it would be sensible for residents to prevent holiday celebrations if they do not cancel them. completely, she said.
Empty station at Wynyard in Sydney on 19 December. Authorities are still trying to identify the Sydney browser store.
Photographer: James D. Morgan / Getty Images
Raina MacIntyre, a global professor of biosecurity at the university, said Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve are major threats to further dispersal as people move around suburbs and holding family gatherings.
“If we don’t stop that series of events, we could be looking at thousands of cases in January,” she said, adding that face masks should be made mandatory in confined spaces. such as shopping centers.
Australia has been a leader in countries that have surpassed SARS-CoV-2 in the past, keeping the total number of reported Covid-19 cases to less than 29,000, introduction 908 deaths, since the onset of the pandemic. It is done through a rigorous test and discovery of communication, and by closing the international border – with all travelers returning abroad forced for 14 days in quarantine hotels.
Authorities are still trying to find out where the Sydney gathering came from, but incidents in the states of Victoria and South Australia were linked to outbreaks at quarantine hotels that saw the virus leaking into the community.
Fifteen locally acquired Covid-19 cases were reported Monday, all linked to the group’s Avalon in Sydney’s North Beach area, said Premier Gladys Berejiklian, of the state of New South Wales. But coronavirus carriers are able to visit dozens of sites across Sydney, raising concerns that the virus could spread widely across Australia’s most populous city.
Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia imposed border restrictions and quarantine measures to prevent travelers from metropolitan Sydney or the surrounding areas from spreading the virus, while Western Australia restricted entry for anyone from New South Wales.
Shares in Australian travel and leisure companies have fallen amid news of border restrictions and are concerned that a wider closure in Sydney could disrupt summer holiday plans. Qantas Airways Ltd., which had flown to and from Sydney in the run-up to Christmas, fell by 6.3%, and Flight Center Travel Group Ltd. down as much as 7.1%.
Australian Travel Stocks triggers Sydney virus outbreak
Victoria, who did not report Covid-19 cases found in the community for 51 days, will use 700 police at border checkpoints, Premier Daniel Andrews said.
Spurs Covid Hotspot Spurs Lockdown of the northern beaches
No singing
Home gatherings in metropolitan Sydney are limited to 10 visitors until at least 11:59 pm on Wednesday, the New South Wales Health department said. Indoor accommodations, including guest centers and places of worship, are limited to one person per 4 square meters (43 square feet), with a maximum of 300 people. Singing and singing in indoor venues are also prohibited.
Home stay orders for about 250,000 residents in the North Beach local government area will hold until midnight on Wednesday. The area includes the popular seafront Manly, and Palm Beach, where the Australian television soap opera “Home and Away” was filmed since 1988.
An “emergency cabinet” will decide on Wednesday whether the northern beaches will oppose the Christmas closure, state Health Minister Brad Hazzard told the Australian Broadcasting Corps on Monday. Sydney is pushing ahead with the New Year’s Eve celebration plans, but it was reviewing the situation every day, he said.
– Supported by Angus Whitley, Tim Smith, Matthew Burgess, and Jason Scott
(Updates with the latest infections)