Coronavirus Australia: Everything that is now closed

Tough new restrictions will come into place from midday today, with the message from the PM only go outside if it’s essential.

Federal and state governments have moved to further restrict public gatherings of people from 10 to two.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a raft of new changes following a national cabinet meeting on Sunday, and said the two-person limit was for “public spaces and other areas of gathering”.

The limit will not apply to households, education or employment, while skate parks and public playgrounds will also be closed.

Asked how it would apply to a family, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said parents and children could go for a walk together even if there were more than two.

And he said it was important to allow a maximum of two people for safety reasons.

“That provides, importantly, for those who may be getting daily exercise, particularly for women, that they wouldn’t be required to walk on their own and they be able to be walk with another person.

“In addition, in public area, public playgrounds, outside gyms and skate parks will be closed as from today and boot camps will be reduced to two, which doesn’t really make it a boot camp, that makes it a private session with your trainer for those who are accessing those services.”

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• No public gatherings over more than two people except family households

• Only leave the house if to buy food, attend medical appointments, exercise

• Outdoor gyms, parks, playgrounds, skate parks will be closed from midday (AEDT) today

• Work from home, keep kids away from school unless emergency workers

• People aged over 70 told to stay at home unless to attend medical appointments, buy essential supplies

• Those aged over 60 with medical concerns, indigenous people over 50 advised to stay home

‘STAY AT HOME’

He said all Australians should remain at home except for a number of reasons. These included shopping for food and other essential items, medical care, compassionate needs, exercise and work or education if remote working or learning is not available.

As well, people aged over 60 with chronic illness and indigenous people over the age of 50 should self-isolate as much as possible.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that public gatherings will now be limited to just two people in a raft of new changes signalled this evening. Picture: Gary Ramage

The prime minister said the rules for weddings and funerals remained in place.

“Funerals (remain) at 10 and weddings at five and State and Territories, as I said the other night, can exercise discretion on those matters on compassionate grounds as they see fit.”

While shopping centres remain open, Mr Morrisson said the two-person rule still applied.

“What we have said today is that you should only be going out to shop for things that you actually need and you should be doing it on an irregular basis,” he said.

“When you are going out for shopping, you should be going for just stuff you need and do it and get home. It is not a time for browsing. It is not a time for catching up with friends or bumping into people and having a long conversation and maybe drawing a few other friends across to catch up on how is it all going. No, you can’t do that anymore. That is what we have to stop doing.”

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said we have to “change the way we interact with each other”.

“It is very simple. We need to all stay home unless we are going out to shop, to do personal exercise, to go to medical appointments, or to go to work or study if you can’t work from home,” he said.

“So anyone who doesn’t need to be out of their home should be in the home. This is radical. “The vast majority of Australians have done the right thing in the last week. We have seen huge evidence of that but we have also seen some very silly behaviour of people who haven’t complied with that, particularly outdoors and sometimes indoors. And that’s why we feel that it is really important that every Australian does the right thing because for these interventions to take effect, the science shows that you need more than 90 per cent of the population to be doing it all of the time.

“Continue to follow these rules and hopefully these early signs of flattening will mean that we can keep going and getting a reduction in the rate of increase every day.”

- with AAP