Coronavirus: NSW moves to tighten up risky business

The NSW government is moving towards a further tightening of COVID-19 restrictions for at-risk businesses as a pre-emptive meas­ure.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The NSW government is moving towards a further tightening of COVID-19 restrictions for at-risk businesses, a pre-emptive meas­ure designed to quell infection rates in the community and limit future outbreaks.

Senior government ministers met on Wednesday night to discuss adjustments to existing public health orders that would ratchet up restrictions for indoor venues that attract high numbers of people.

The restrictions are likely to target restaurants and cafes, after similar moves to curb the movements of people and monitoring of individuals inside pubs and clubs across the state, which were announced earlier this week.

The government met with the Restaurant and Cafe Industry Association­ of Australia on Wednesday to reiterate the need for its members to abide by COVID safety measures. The RCIA is a peak body representing 45,000 restaurants, cafes and catering businesses.

The meeting responded to growing concerns about lax safety standards across numerous industri­es, and the fear that this complacency could exacerbate outbreaks of the novel corona­virus when they do occur.

Restaurants, cafes and other businesses currently self-regulate their safe hygiene practices, though they are not required to register as COVID-safe businesses, which allows real-time feedback about safety standards to be uploaded by customers.

“There’s a sense that the health orders aren’t strong enough,” said one official familiar with the situation, referring to the need for tighter controls given the threat posed by the outbreak in Victoria and subsequent transmissions in NSW.

The Australian has learned that Wednesday night’s meeting of the government’s COVID-19 leadership group would move to discuss further measures to mitigate these risks, but was unlikely to make hard decisions. Adjustments to the public health orders would most likely involve “tweaks”, said a source.

The issue of compliance has gained greater prominence in recent­ days after the outbreak of COVID-19 transmissions at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, in Sydney’s southwest, which is now responsible for 34 infections.

Infections linking back to the hotel have been traced to a nearby Planet Fitness gym in the same suburb, but concerns are also held for potential contamination in other areas, including the Bankstown YMCA in Revesby, Woolworths in Bowral, the Milky Lane restaurant in Parramatta, The Bavarian Macarthur, Macarthur Tavern, and Western Suburbs Leagues Club in Campbelltown.

On Tuesday the government introduced significant restrict­ions for licensed venues across NSW, which mandated smaller table bookings — from 20 people down to 10 — and a 300-person cap on patron numbers.

Dedicated hygiene marshals will also now patrol venues to ensur­e correct social distancing and hygiene standards are being implemented.

At a Committee for Economic Development of Australia forum in Sydney on Wednesday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian flagged the likelihood of further restrictions for indoor venues graded high-risk by health offic­ials. “We know what is safe, we know what is high-risk, and there is definitely room for us to consider what else might be considered a high-risk activity and consider how we curtail some of that risk,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Earlier, the Premier advocated strongly for a longer-term strategy of suppressing the virus over total elimination.