NSW Covid: Close contact isolation rules to be dumped on Friday

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has confirmed a number of remaining Covid rules will be scrapped on Friday, including one that has businesses celebrating.

Isolation requirements for Covid household contacts will be scrapped from Friday night, vaccination mandates for education and healthcare workers will be lifted, and unvaccinated international arrivals will no longer be required to go into hotel quarantine.

Premier Dominic Perrottet announced a major relaxation of Covid rules on Wednesday, making mask requirements on public transport one of the only restrictions still in place.

Household contacts of positive cases will be freed from isolation as long as they follow a number of precautions for seven days.

For seven days, close contacts must not visit aged care, hospitals, disability, and correctional facilities unless a special exemption applies. They will need to wear a mask indoors when outside the house, and take a RAT test before interacting with people they don’t live with, if practicable.

They will also be told to work from home if they can and avoid contact with elderly and immunocompromised people. They need to tell their boss that they are a close contact.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has announced close contacts of a postive Covid-19 case will no longer be required to isolate for seven days. Picture: NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Vaccination requirements for key workforces will be lifted except for disability and aged care workers. Details of this change will be finalised in coming weeks.

From April 30, unvaccinated international arrivals will not need to go into hotel quarantine.

Green dots on public transport will be removed with passenger caps lifted.

Mr Perrottet said NSW should be “incredibly proud” of the circumstances the state is now in after two years of the Covid pandemic.

“It has been a very difficult two years and people have made enormous sacrifices and efforts to ensure we have kept people safe during this,” Mr Perrottet said.

“I want to emphasise that obviously the pandemic is not over. There is a long way to go…(but) we’ve made changes in consultation with the business community and union representatives. And because of the efforts that everyone has made we’re able today to make some further changes.”

CLOSE CONTACT CHANGES IMMINENT

Close contact rules forcing people who live in the same house as positive Covid cases are set to be scrapped as early as this week.

In a move which signals NSW is now “living alongside” the virus, the Perrottet government will axe the rule enforcing isolation on healthy people who live with someone who tests positive to Covid-19.

The announcement will be made in tandem with the Victorian government, with both state premiers talking well into Tuesday night in a bid to get the rule change across the line.

Close contact isolation rules were among the restrictions considered by senior ministers in a cabinet subcommittee meeting last night.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said yesterday his state’s remaining Covid rules would be relaxed “very soon”.

It comes after The Daily Telegraph backed business groups in their calls for state governments to end the isolation rules starving industries of staff.

Earlier this month, Health Minister Brad Hazzard quickly moved to exempt airport workers from close contact isolation requirements after travellers faced enormous queues.

Airport workers joined workers from a raft of industries exempt from isolation including healthcare, manufacturing, transport, warehousing, utilities, education, media, and funerals.

Senior ministers are also working to relax a number of peripheral Covid rules, but a requirement for people to wear masks on public transport is set to remain.

The news of an imminent close contact rule change has been welcomed by Business NSW.

The rules have already been relaxed for airport workers, after short staffing led to chaos at Sydney Airport. Picture: Julian Andrews

“We’d welcome any change to the isolation rules to enable perfectly healthy people to be able to go back to work if they are a close contact, so long as they produce a negative result to a RAT,” a spokesman said.

“It’s blatantly unfair that some workers in some industries have been able to work despite being close contacts, while others have not, causing huge disruptions to small businesses in particular who have had to close down operations due to being short staffed.”

“This is about getting the economy moving again and allowing businesses to be able to plan with confidence.

Earlier on Tuesday, Labor leader Chris Minns said scrapping strict isolation rules for close contacts “may well be appropriate” as long as it was done “with the best advice and information provided by health professionals”.

“A rapid antigen test with a negative result may well be appropriate given herd immunity is far greater today than it was months ago and certainly in the dark days of winter 2021,” he said.

Originally published as NSW Covid: Close contact isolation rules to be dumped on Friday