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Some Border Restrictions Ease

by | Sat, Jan 16 2021

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NSW is considering loosening virus restrictions on Sydney residents as it takes aim at other states imposing border limitations.

Australia is eyeing its first day of no local coronavirus cases since mid-December after just one case was reported on Friday.

Queensland authorities say that case was a returned traveller recently released from quarantine who is shedding the virus and is not infectious.

NSW, which is aiming for its third-straight day of no local cases on Saturday, will monitor testing numbers over the weekend before announcing whether it will lift some of the restrictions currently in force across Greater Sydney.

“Relief is on its way so long as we maintain low or zero number of cases and have those testing rates high,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Friday.

Ms Berejiklian also fired a shot at states enforcing travel restrictions on those currently in Greater Sydney or regional NSW.

Victorians who have visited Sydney in the past fortnight face a $5000 fine and 14 days of quarantine if they try to return home without a government exemption.

The entire city is still considered a “red zone” by Victoria.

“There’s nowhere in NSW that is currently a hot spot by anyone’s definition – well, I should say, by any medical definition,” the NSW premier told reporters on Friday.

“So I don’t see why any state is precluding … people in NSW from moving freely back home.”

Victoria’s health minister Martin Foley said the government was constantly reviewing the red zones, taking into account the number of active cases and mystery cases in both states.

“Let’s be clear, there are almost 200 cases circulating in the Greater Sydney community since December the 16th, not just on the northern beaches,” Mr Foley said.

“We’re more than confident that our colleagues in New South Wales are mopping this up, but there have been chains of unknown transmission for many weeks now in Sydney.”

Travellers from Greater Brisbane arriving in South Australia from Sunday will not have to go into quarantine, the SA government announced on Friday.

Meanwhile, Western Australia late on Friday assigned a “low risk” status to Victoria, which has now recorded nine days of no local transmission.

Victorians still need to self-quarantine for 14 days but, unlike residents from “medium risk” Queensland and NSW, will be able to enter WA without an exemption from Monday.

Photo credit: Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons