Coronavirus: Green light for Victorians to leave former NSW red zones

Thousands of Victorians who have been stranded in Sydney are finally able to head home, after the Andrews government downgraded 25 of 35 Sydney LGAs.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton in Melbourne on Monday. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Thousands of Victorians who have been stranded in Sydney since New Year’s Day are finally able to head home, after the Andrews government downgraded 25 of 35 Sydney local government areas from “red zones” to “amber” from 6pm on Monday.

However, people who have spent any time in the past fortnight in 10 western and inner western Sydney LGAs, which account for a population of 2.075 million — or almost 40 per cent of the city’s population — are still not able to travel to Victoria.

The LGA red zones are Blacktown City, Burwood, Canada Bay City, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield City, Inner West, Liverpool City, Parramatta City and Strathfield Municipality.

From 6pm on Monday, anyone who has spent time in the other 25 LGAs will be allowed to apply for an automatically issued permit and travel back to Victoria.

They must get tested for coronavirus within 72 hours of arrival in Victoria and isolate until they receive a negative result.

 

The Blue Mountains and Wollongong LGAs have also been downgraded from red to amber.

In addition, 16 LGAs on the Victorian-NSW border will go from amber to green, enabling Melburnians to travel to NSW without having to isolate on their return, in a boost for local tourism.

“What the detailed and extensive evaluation of the epidemiological conditions in Sydney has revealed is that transmission and cases are pretty much confined to those 10 local government areas and we’re not seeing cases and spread or contacts that are in isolation in those other 25 local government areas,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said.

“That’s what gives the public health team confidence to provide to me and the government and therefore for decisions to be confirmed about releasing or changing from red to orange, those 25 local government areas.”

The Andrews government’s decision to maintain bans on travel from 10 Sydney council areas comes despite NSW recording just 32 new locally acquired cases of coronavirus over the past two weeks and none on Monday.

Analysis of how Sydney’s outbreak compares with Victoria’s devastating second wave highlights the different trajectories the two most populous states have taken. On Monday, the 32nd day, NSW recorded just eight new cases, all of them in hotel quarantine. On the 32nd day of Victoria’s second wave, the southern state recorded 317 new COVID-19 cases — the state’s first daily caseload of more than 300 — and the Andrews government was still seven days away from making mask-wearing mandatory outside the home throughout Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire.

 

Mr Andrews said his government would review the “red zone” status of the remaining 10 Sydney LGAs “on a daily basis”.

“I think it unlikely that all 10 would flip to orange at the same time,” Mr Andrews said. “It may be that some of them come off in a few days. Others may take longer. I know that that is frustrating and challenging not to be able to provide a definite answer on that, but again, you’ve got to be guided by the best public health advice.”

Chief health officer Brett Sutton said Sydney’s northern beaches had been among the city’s LGAs reclassified from a red zone to amber despite being the epicentre of the initial pre-Christmas cluster.

He said the LGAs that remained as red zones were related to the Berala cluster, centred on a bottle shop in Sydney’s west.

“Fingers crossed for the remaining suburbs in Sydney, and as the Premier says, they’ll be reviewed every single day, both in terms of any new cases that will emerge or might emerge and all of those wastewater results as well,” Professor Sutton said.