Coronavirus: Holiday turmoil as borders shut
Tens of thousands of people have had holiday plans thrown into chaos and the nation is again divided by closed borders as authorities scramble to control coronavirus outbreaks.
Tens of thousands of people have had January holiday plans thrown into chaos and the nation is again divided, with Victoria and South Australia closing their borders to NSW and Western Australia locking out Victorians, as authorities scramble to control coronavirus outbreaks in two states.
Acting Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan closed the border along the Murray River to everyone in NSW on Thursday afternoon, sparking a rush of holiday-makers back to Victoria to avoid a fortnight of compulsory hotel quarantine, which will be imposed from 11.59pm on January 1.
The closures followed the discovery of a cluster, which by late Thursday comprised at least eight coronavirus cases, linked to a traveller from NSW. The cluster ended Victoria’s 61-day streak with no local virus transmissions.
The Victorian cluster emerged as NSW recorded 10 new coronavirus cases from almost 28,000 tests in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday, down from 18 the previous day. These included five cases linked to the Avalon cluster on Sydney’s northern beaches, three linked to the Croydon cluster in the city’s inner west, one linked to a transport worker, and one that remained under investigation.
All of the Victorian cases were people who ate at the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant in Melbourne bayside suburb Black Rock on December 21, alongside the returned NSW traveller.
Victorian contact tracers were confronted with a window spanning up to 12 days at the height of the Christmas period, between the NSW traveller’s arrival in Victoria on December 19, and the discovery late on Wednesday of the emerging cluster.
More than 70 close contacts were in quarantine as of Thursday, in locations as far afield as Barwon Heads on the surf coast, Leongatha in south Gippsland and suburbs across Melbourne.
Exposure sites ranged from the ritzy Royal Brighton Yacht Club in bayside Melbourne and Cape Schanck’s exclusive National Golf Club on the Mornington Peninsula, to the Fountain Gate shopping centre in Melbourne’s outer southeast made famous by comedy duo Kath and Kim.
The prevalence of community transmission in NSW led the Northern Territory to again declare greater Sydney a “hotspot” from midnight on New Year’s Eve, with anyone arriving after that time required to quarantine at the territory’s designated facilities at Howard Springs and Alice Springs.
While NSW has twice closed its border to Victoria — during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919 and for 4½ months ending on November 23 during Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 — the Andrews government’s decision on Thursday represents the first time Melbourne has imposed the restriction on Sydney since federation.
Announcing the move, Ms Allan cited cases in NSW where a source of infection had not been established, as well as Victoria’s emerging cluster.
“This is not an easy choice,” Ms Allan said. “Closing borders, putting in place restrictions is never an easy choice to make, certainly not one we wanted to be making and announcing on a day that is supposed to be about celebrating.
“This is going to cause some disruption for Victorians who may be holidaying. We do apologise for this disruption; however, these difficult decisions are about protecting the community, protecting and keeping case numbers low and doing everything we can to lock in the gains we’ve made over the course of 2020, so we can move to 2021 and have a much better year for 2021.”
Sydney and the NSW central coast had already been off-limits for people wishing to enter Victoria, with hotel quarantine compulsory for anyone entering the southern state from those locations for more than a week.
On Wednesday the Andrews government gave people returning to Victoria from Wollongong and the Blue Mountains until 11.59pm on Thursday night to cross the border, or face a fortnight of hotel quarantine.
Anyone who returned to Victoria from the rest of NSW before 11.59pm on Thursday would only have to quarantine at home until they received a negative coronavirus test result, while those arriving in the 24 hours to 1159pm on Friday would have to quarantine at home for 14 days regardless of any test result.
Arrangements were expected to be similar for border communities to those in place when NSW closed the border to Victorians from early July, with those living in local government areas 100km either side of the border permitted to cross.
However, border residents were bracing for the kinds of administrative struggles they faced in July, particularly given the latest border closure is being administered by a different state government.
The ACT will still be treated by Victoria as a “green zone”, with residents able to obtain permits to drive through NSW to Victoria.
Ms Allan announced at an earlier press conference on Thursday that Victorians seeing in the new year at private parties would have to halve their guest lists from a maximum of 30 at private homes to 15, as of 5pm on Thursday, with masks also mandatory indoors from that time.
Ms Allan made the announcement as Premier Daniel Andrews was on leave with his family on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. She said the Premier was fully briefed and “across the discussions and decisions”. She had spoken with him on several occasions on Thursday.
In Western Australia, thousands of travellers from Victoria who arrived in the state on or after December 21 were ordered to self-quarantine immediately and get a coronavirus test, with their quarantine period set to expire 14 days after they arrived in WA.
As of midnight on Thursday, WA’s border was closed to Victorians. Acting Premier Roger Cook, who is also the Health Minister, said only people with an exemption could enter WA from Victoria after midnight Thursday. This would apply to West Australians who went to Victoria for Christmas and are still there.
From 12:01am on January 1, South Australia’s hard border with NSW is also in place. People from NSW have been banned from entering SA, unless they are returning South Australians, permanently relocating or essential travellers.
Additional reporting: Paige Taylor, Ellie Dudley
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