John Barilaro pushes for North Coast Covid-19 lockdown to end, Jeanette Young slams border meets
“I make no apologies”: Deputy Premier fights for lockdown to end but warns unvaccinated residents may be left out. But Queensland still shows no sign of border sympathy. View our interactive timeline:
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North Coast residents have the Deputy Premier’s promise to “fight” for lockdown to end on Friday.
Restrictions are set to ease for regional NSW on September 10, with the NSW Government to make a formal announcement based on health advice by the end of the week.
“I’m fighting that (the lockdown on) the Northern Rivers and the northern part of the state should be lifted,” Mr Barilaro said at a Tuesday press conference.
“You can’t suppress what doesn’t exist.”’
It has been over 30 days since the Lismore, Ballina and Byron Bay regions were plunged into a snap lockdown, due to a positive Covid-19 case from Sydney travelling to the region.
Mr Barilaro stressed residents in the area had been “patient” and the earlier extension of regional stay-at-home rules gave authorities an extra two weeks to get on top of the available data.
“Yes, there has been sewage surveillance at Byron, but it’s not alarming,” he said.
“If we cannot get it for the northern part of the state, no one else will be getting out.”
However, at a Wednesday press conference Mr Barilaro warned those eased restrictions would not be like those pre-lockdown.
He was absolutely “blunt” those privileges would be dependent on a vaccination rate on par with metropolitan Sydney.
It could mean a back and forth on restrictions as statewide freedoms came into play at the 70 per cent double dose vaccination mark.
“If we have the opportunity to open, if it happens, it will be very restricted environments, it will be nothing like the environment pre-lockdown,” he said.
“Some people in the regions will come out of lockdowns now but could lose freedoms if they’re unvaccinated and I make no apologies for that.”
However, it might not be enough to open borders before Christmas as Queensland’s Health Minister Yvette D’Ath accuses the Federal Government of not giving the state enough vaccines.
“I want people to holiday at Christmas, but we don’t know what’s going to be happening in NSW with their outbreaks,” she said during the Queensland press conference on Tuesday.
Queensland chief health officer Jeanette Young also had stern words for NSW residents meeting at the Queensland border.
Dr Young said she would “really prefer” to see border residents obey stay-at-home orders rather than “simply going out” to see cut-off family and friends.
“At this point we haven’t seen positive sewage in the Tweed Heads which is good but have seen it on and off in Byron Bay,” she said.
“That is a concern because it means they’ve got cases of Covid in their community that they don’t necessarily know about.”
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