Coronavirus: NSW eases restrictions on visits between households

Gladys Berejiklian says from Friday up to two adults and their dependants would be permitted to visit another household.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in Sydney. Picture: AAP

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has eased social restrictions to allow visits between households, with members of her cabinet also backing plans for children to ­return to school immediately.

Ms Berejiklian said that from Friday up to two adults and their dependants would be permitted to visit another household anywhere in NSW for the purpose of improving their mental wellbeing and ­alleviating social isolation.

“The two adults need not be related­,” Ms Berejiklian said, adding­ that the unwinding of the restrictions, first implemented on March 30, would extend “the existin­g guidelines of being able to leave home for ‘care or medical ­purposes’ ”.

The decision to relax the measures followed a meeting of cabinet on Monday in which other restrictions — ranked according to their health and economic impacts — were discussed.

Ms Berejiklian said she expected retail activity to pick up next month as shops began reopening to trade with social-distancing measures in place.

NSW, like other states, has ­experienced a dramatic reduction in its infection rates for COVID-19. In the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, five new cases of the coronavirus were recorded from a total of 4112 tests.

The state’s total infection number­s stand at 3009 cases.

Cabinet ministers have been working to a matrix that ranks current­ restrictions and closures based on their health risk and economic potential.

Certain activities — such as weddings — have been graded by NSW Treasury officials as high-risk and low-value in terms of delivering­ substantial economic gains. But schools have a much more attractive score — they are ranked among the lowest for health risks and highest for their economic potential.

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Some NSW ministers told The Australian they believed current government policies were too cautious about sending students back to schools, and that children needed to return to full-time face-to-face learning immediately.

Driving the delay, they said, was the NSW Teachers Federation, a dominant union that has argued a full return to school could pose a health risk to staff.

“There’s a strong view that they should go back immediately,” said one minister. “Once you get schools back, you get the workforce back.”

A second government minister confirmed that they, too, supported a swift return to classrooms, saying it needed to be examined.

A government MP said: “There is definitely a view that the Premier­’s messaging on schools is very confusing and that a staggere­d approach is far too difficult for parents to manage on a practical level. We need to get serious about sending kids back to school and in a workable format.”

Ms Berejiklian has committed to sending students back to full-time learning by the end of term two, which began this week, but from May 11 students will return to classes on a rostered basis, starting with one day a week. This, too, will be reviewed and potentially accelerated. “We’re very hopeful that the first few weeks of school returni­ng will result in us being able to possibly truncate the process­, to have full-time face-to-face student attendance quicker than anticipated,” she said.

Other states have begun moving forward with returning their students to the classroom. West Australian schools will open from Wednesday, South Australian stud­ents are being encouraged to attend, and the Queensland govern­ment is examining a staged return to face-to-face learning.

The Victorian government has signalled its intention to loosen school restrictions in mid-May.