Coronavirus: Last drinks for now, local lockdowns next

Neighbourhood lockdowns and new clamps on interstate travel may be necessary to combat COVID-19, sparking predictions of mass closures in the hospitality industry.

Greg Moore, right, with mate Hewy O’Connell, celebrating his bucks day at Manly’s Steyne Hotel in Sydney’s northern beaches on Friday. Picture: Nikki Short

Scott Morrison has warned that neighbourhood lockdowns and new clamps on interstate travel may be necessary to combat COVID-19, as the national cabinet tightened social-distancing measures on indoor gatherings, sparking predictions of mass closures in the hospitality industry.

Under the strict conditions that came into force on Friday night, all indoor gatherings will need to provide four square metres for every person to ensure social distancing is effective and limit the spread of the disease.

Sydney chef and restaurateur Luke Mangan predicted about half of the industry would be wiped out by the tighter restrictions. “I ­always thought that, God forbid, a plane falls out of the sky or ship sinks or a hotel closes I’d be in trouble but I never expected to have all three happen at once,” Mangan said on Friday. “I’m just surprised the government hasn’t shut us all down. It’s like we’ve got a gun at our head waiting for the trigger to be pulled.’’

Mangan said people were not coming into restaurants because they had received the message of not going to public, confined ­spaces.

“If it’s vaguely profitable when it’s full, you’ll quarter the numbers (under these rules) so you have to operate unprofitably,” he said.

“The message from the government is ‘Keep your doors open, keep paying your staff’ but you’re not going to have any customers.

“We’re losing $50,000 a week at this rate. You wouldn’t have thought this could happen.”

A few dedicated patrons were at the Steyne Hotel in Sydney’s beach suburb of Manly, but there were more empty tables than full ones as the pub served drinks on what could be its last Friday service for many months. Greg Moore said they were having a final round of drinks for a couple of weeks at least. “This is it,” Mr Moore said. “By the end of the weekend, I don’t think we will be able to see anyone else,” he said.

Mr Moore was supposed to visit Airlie Beach for his bucks party but decided to get his friends together at the pub locally instead.

“We were supposed to go up on Thursday but we cancelled it,” he said. “Going from the highly ­populated city of Sydney to Airlie Beach was probably not the right thing to do.”

The national cabinet — made up of Mr Morrison, premiers and chief ministers — will reconvene next week to consider tougher rules on how Australians move around their towns and the country, including the prospect of neighbourhood lockdowns.

As cities across the US and the whole of California were shut down, Mr Morrison said the nation’s medical officers would advise him and premiers on how they could close down parts of cities suffering outbreaks without shutting an entire state down.

“There will be, as we have already seen, parts of cities or places that will be more susceptible because of quite localised outbreaks,” Mr Morrison said. “What we’ve asked for advice on is the density of those cases, how many cases in a particular area that triggers actions over and above … these general rules that apply.

“That would be staged up ­according to the level of that outbreak.”

Domestic travel restrictions will also be considered at Tuesday’s meeting.

Mr Morrison said non-essential travel should be reconsidered.

“The risk of being on a plane is very low. It is very low. The issue is not being on the plane. The issue is moving to different parts of the country and potentially large volumes of populations moving around the country,” he said. “Tasmania has already made their decision about how that will be treated. Other states may take those decisions for particular parts of their states and that is entirely appropriate that they may consider doing that.”

Australian Hotels Association chief executive Stephen Ferguson called for wage subsidies to support jobs in the hospitality sector, which employs about 900,000 workers in the wake of the tougher social distancing measures announced on Friday.

“There is no doubt that the restrictions on the number of people and spacing is having an impact,” Mr Ferguson said. “For many members, we have to see what happens Friday and Saturday nights … we are already seeing a significant downturn in trade. We will absolutely be looking to the government’s next round of stimulus measures. Two hundred thousand of our 250,000 workers, among our members, are part-time or casual. Some staff will no longer have shifts but employers want to keep connected to them, and want to provide some wage. We believe the best approach is for the government to subsidise that wage.”

Mr Morrison defended the tougher social distancing rules on Friday, saying the four square metre rule indoors was necessary to save lives.

“Now these are quite practical rules,” the Prime Minister said.

“It just simply means understanding how big the room is and then simply advising how many people can be in that room at any one time.”