Coronavirus Qld: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk delivers state’s latest case numbers
The tourism sector is rejoicing at the news Queensland will throw open its borders to five NSW shires, meaning 152,000 southerners can now enter that state, saying it’s a welcome first step and that the we’re “certainly a long way ahead of other parts of the world”.
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Queensland will throw open its borders to five New South Wales Shires from next week, as the Sunshine State recorded no new cases overnight, with two cases detected over the border in the same period.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the shires of Byron, Ballina, the City of Lismore, Richmond Valley, which includes Casino and Evans Head, and Glen Innes would be added to the border zone from 1am on October 1.
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“Residents will be able to apply for a border pass and then they’ll be able to freely travel around Queensland and Queenslanders will also be able to travel there as well,” she said.
Queenslanders will still need a border pass to return to Queensland and declare they have not visited a hotspot, but they will not need to quarantine.
NSW residents in those council areas will also be allowed to travel anywhere in Queensland under the changes without going into quarantine.
They will also need to fill out a border declaration pass.
This in not an extension of the current Gold Coast/Tweed border bubble which allows only those residents across the border. The new border arrangement will apply to all Queenslanders and those in the specific NSW council areas.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate the partial border reopening was ‘a huge step forward’ for the Glitter Strip tourism industry as it battled to recover from COVID-19.
“It’s great timing with the NSW school holidays about to start and on the back of the border reopening to the ACT and the commencement of direct flights from Canberra to Coolangatta on Friday,” he said.
Cr Tate said Byron Bay was reportedly ‘jam-packed’ with tourists and the partial border reopening meant many northern NSW residents could come to the Coast for the holidays.
He thanked premier Annastacia Palaszczuk but said her NSW counterpart, and political foe Gladys Berejiklian, deserved much of the credit for containing the virus in her state.
“I think the Gold Coast can become the gateway for northern NSW residents to visit other parts of Queensland,” he said.
Queensland Tourism Industry Council CEO Daniel Gschwind hailed the news as ‘a ray of sunshine in a grim scenario’.
Mr Gschwind said the decision would not only benefit tourism on both sides of the border but also cross-border residents who have been prevented from going to work or medical appointments.
“We’re very pleased to finally hear some good news,” Mr Gschwind said.
“The case for the full reopening of the border with NSW is strengthening by the day but this is certainly a very welcome first step.
“We’re certainly a long way ahead of other parts of the world where things are tragically going from bad to worse.”
However, Orbit World Travel executive director Michael Chase-Smith said the border reopening was a matter of “too little too late” for the struggling travel sector.
“There needs to be an opening up on a more grand scale for it to have any impact on the travel sector,” said Mr Chase-Smith, whose Gold Coast-based firm also has offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
“The government is taking a sledgehammer approach.”
He said his firm had suffered a more than 90 per cent slump in revenue since March with 52 of its 73 employees on JobKeeper.
“The partial reopening of the borders will help businesses and families around the border but it is not going to help us much,” he said.
There were no new cases confirmed in Queensland on Tuesday morning.
It means there are 16 active cases in the Sunshine State.
There have also been more than 4000 tests conducted in the previous testing period.
It has been 12 days since there was a known case of COVID in the community.
There are roughly 152,000 people who live in those postcodes that will be added to the border zone.
Health Minister Steven Miles said Queensland would safety shift the border zone to allow about 152,000 people who live in northern NSW to travel to the state “relatively freely”.
The changes will come into effect at 1am October.
Mr Miles said the small number of cases in northern NSW made it safe to add these new postcodes to the border zone.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said there had not been any cases in those border areas for quite some time.
She acknowledged that some of those people who live in those postcodes have a lot more to do with Queensland than they do with their home state of NSW.
Dr Young said no cases of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, had been reported north of Sydney “for quite awhile”, making it safe to reopen the border for people living in northern NSW.
NSW has not had any new community transmission cases since September 8.
In terms of the rest of NSW, Dr Young said a decision on whether the border would reopen would be made at the end of the month.
She said Queensland’s COVIDsafe plans had worked exceptionally well “far better than I thought they would”.
“We’ve worked out more about the virus and Queenslanders have learnt how to live safely with it,” she said.
Ms Palaszczuk confirmed there could be more restrictions wound back at the end of the month.
Mr Miles said if Queensland has two further two days of no community transmission, Dr Young will consider easing restrictions in the Greater Brisbane region.
“That’s in stark contrast to what is happening in the rest of the world,” he said.
Dr Young confirmed that restrictions in Brisbane and Ipswich could be lifted from Friday if there are no new cases of community transmission.
Those restrictions include a ten person cap on gatherings at homes.
The new cap for gatherings would likely be increased to 30, in line with the rest of the state.
Queenslanders were on Monday eagerly awaiting a decision on whether restrictions on gatherings and visiting aged care homes and hospitals will be lifted, potentially as soon as this weekend.
That will be dependent on no new COVID-19 cases recorded outside of quarantine in the next two days, according to Mr Miles.
“Thursday would be 14 days after the last case thought to be infectious in the community,” he said.
“So that’s an appropriate review point.”
At the same time, Mr Miles expressed concern about the rising tide of infections in the UK.
“We’re very concerned about the situation in the UK, very concerned about the number of new cases across Europe and what that means for the number of deaths there,” he said.
“They’re currently projecting up to 200 deaths a day in the UK if the second wave continues as it is currently projected.
“Sadly, that means that our international borders are likely to need to stay closed for the foreseeable future.”
Since August 22, gatherings in southeast Queensland have been restricted to 10, and to 30 everywhere else in the state but Dr Young said the run of zero community transmissions continued for another two days, restrictions on gatherings and aged care lockdowns in the Greater Brisbane region would be lifted on Friday.
That would mean gatherings of up to 30 people would be allowed in homes across the state.