Coronavirus fears impacting businesses on Eastwood’s Rowe St shopping strip
From bustling dim sim eateries and morning tai chi classes to dollar shops embellished with year of the rat paraphernalia, a colourful retail precinct in Sydney’s north-west has turned into an almost ‘ghost town’ with peak retail experts calling on customers to come back and support local businesses.
Northern District Times
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FROM bustling dim sim eateries and morning tai chi classes to dollar shops embellished with year of the rat paraphernalia, a colourful retail precinct in Sydney’s north-west has turned into a ‘ghost town’.
The Northern District Times talked to residents and shop employees on Eastwood’s main shopping strip, Rowe street, just after 9am on Friday to find out how they’ve been impacted from the coronavirus outbreak.
And despite just nine cases in Australia confirmed, fear appears to be keeping people away from the area, leading peak retail experts to call on customers to come back and support local businesses.
Local dollar shop employee Peter Lee said he has noticed a significant drop in foot traffic over the last week.
“Not many people are coming in. Not many people are walking on the road,” Mr Lee said.
When asked whether many people have purchased items for the Lunar New Year he said there weren’t as many people shopping as usual.
“After this news came out, suddenly everyone stopped,” Mr Lee said.
Vela Lu who works in the local butcher said she’s seen about a 90 per cent drop in customers.
“A lot of people (have been) lost. It’s very quiet,” she said.
Ms Lu said there were so few customers the butcher had to close on Thursday.
Mother-of-two Ging Hao said she’s not worried about walking on the streets but she has noticed there was “less crowds” than usual at that time of morning.
Ms Hao said she only likes to follow the official news from the government and from what she’s heard there are not many confirmed cases, so she feels “safe” to be on the streets.
Matt Gorrien, from Eastwood, said he noticed there’s less people on the streets and said he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing.
“If they have the virus, they shouldn’t be out. There’s a lot of trust in people to self incubate for two weeks.
“And I don’t think there has been a great deal in measures taken by the government.”
National Retail Association chief executive Dominique Lamb said certain suburbs known to have a high population of Chinese are affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
“Prominent areas known to be the residents of many of our Chinese immigrants are certainly reporting less foot traffic. There’s certainly been a decrease in those spaces and visitors,” Ms Lamb told The Northern District Times.
With the Chinese Lunar New Year, she said this time of year is usually a “peak period” of time for Chinese tourists and community visiting Australia.
“Ordinarily what would happen at this time of year is groups of family members (of Chinese residents) would come out to visit Australia to visit family and participate in significant parts of shopping.
“And what we’ve noticed in these areas that are prominent to these families is that there has been a significant drop off in visitors.”
With 1.45 million visitors from China arriving annually spending about $4.3 billion per year, Ms Lamb said China is Australia’s largest inbound market.
“This is one of the times of year where we see a prevalence with our Chinese shoppers and it is certainly something our retailers embrace around new years.
She said it was a “concern” to see some people avoiding these shopping areas.
“Just to see some of these areas quiet is a concern particularly small and medium sized businesses.
Ms Lamb called on retailers to remain open and for consumers to continue shopping in the areas.
“Consumers can continue shopping in these areas. At this stage we have had a minimal amount of Australians affected.
“Most of these people have travelled from the Wuhan province and it is important to shop locally and make sure our communities are receiving that support from consumers. They are simply having a tough time.”
Ryde Mayor Jerome Laxale said he understands people are taking precautions but said there’s no official health advice to avoid Eastwood.
“I’d encourage people to come and do what they usually do. It’s not unsafe here,” Mr Laxale said.
“There’s businesses here who are struggling. It’s starting to be a concern for the shopkeepers. They’re takings have just dived and we’ve just had to cancel the Lunar New Year event.”
Councillor Bernard Purcell said local businesses are suffering from the low pedestrian traffic.
“Local business chambers have been in touch. They’re talking about 50 per cent down on takings,” he said.
Earlier this week Ryde Council, along with its Lunar New Year subcommittee, said the Chinese Lunar New Year event scheduled to take place in Eastwood on Saturday February 8 will be postponed.
Coronavirus can affect both humans and animals with the latest outbreak coronavirus (2019-nCoV) originating from Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province.
While the majority of confirmed cases have so far been people who have visited Wuhan, there is some evidence of human to human transmission, according to the Department of Health.
Symptoms include a fever, cough, sore throat, nausea and difficulty breathing.
Currently there are four cases confirmed and nine under investigation in New South Wales.