Covid restrictions in NSW won't ease before Australia Day to avoid super-spreading events

Restrictions in New South Wales won’t be eased by Australia Day, amid concerns of “super-spreading events”.

The state’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, flagged on Wednesday she would consider easing restrictions next week if case numbers remained low, but has clarified it won’t happen until after 26 January.

“I’m confident that we’ll be able to announce something towards the end of next week, but not beforehand because everyday that goes by gives us extra confidence,” she said on 2GB radio on Thursday.

“We don’t want Australia Day to become a super-spreading event.”

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Although NSW recorded no locally acquired cases on Thursday, the testing number dipped back to around 12,000.

Berejiklian warned that if test numbers did not increase in the greater Sydney area the government may have to reconsider plans to ease restrictions.

Previously the premier stated that testing numbers should remain in the 20,000s every day.

“By this time next week there will certainly be decisions made around getting us as close as possible to pre-Avalon conditions,” Berejiklian told reporters on Wednesday.

Masks were likely to remain compulsory on public transport, however.

The state recorded five new cases in hotel quarantine.

As NSW restrictions appear to be remaining, Queensland has confirmed that Brisbane’s Covid-19 rules would loosen as of 1am Friday.

“Yesterday we said we were on 100% track to have our restrictions lifted … and I can confirm that is exactly what is going to happen,” the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said on Thursday.

From Friday greater Brisbane residents would be able to have 50 people to their home and gather in groups of 100 in public spaces. Masks would no longer be mandatory anywhere except at airports or on international flights, as mandated by the national cabinet.

“We’re asking people … if you’re going into a crowded area or on public transport or in a shopping centre and you can’t socially distance and you feel uncomfortable, just put a mask on,” Palaszczuk said.

Restaurants, bars and cafes would be allowed to increase capacity to one person per two square metres, and wedding and funeral capacity would return to 200.

It comes as the federal government announced all returned international travellers will have to have a PCR Covid-19 test before boarding a plane back to Australia from Friday, and mask-wearing will be mandatory on all international flights.

With the highly contagious UK variant of Covid-19 spreading rapidly around the world Australia has tightened its controls on those attempting to enter the country.

The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, on Thursday confirmed that new measures previously agreed on by the national cabinet would come into effect on 22 January.

“I have signed the Biosecurity Act orders today to ensure that as of the 22nd of January PCR tests will be required within the 72 hours prior to departure for international travellers, that masks will be required on international flights,” he said.

“These are difficult and will be challenging for many people and I am apologetic that we need to put in place these restrictions.”

This came as Australia recorded another day of zero locally acquired cases.

Hunt also went into more detail on Australia’s recently announced Covid-19 vaccine rollout.

“We have been able to secure additional workforce for that vaccine rollout … The first phase will be in our hospitals and that will be involving the -70C cold chain logistics that are required for distribution of the Pfizer vaccine,” he said.

“And then as we move to the broader population, and the ability to use the AstraZeneca vaccine, we have our general practices as the cornerstone of that distribution rollout, state vaccination clinics, commonwealth vaccination clinics, Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations, and from phase two the pharmacies.”

Hunt said the commonwealth government sourced the surge workforce from private providers Aspen Medical, Healthcare Australia, International SOS and Sonic Clinical Services. No health professional would be allowed to administer a vaccine without compulsory training, which was being developed by the Australian College of Nursing.

“The training is expected to start within the next fortnight, if not earlier. The final costs will be released by the Department of Health,” he said.

When asked if Australia had managed to secure additional Pfizer vaccine doses after the company announced it would be upping production, Hunt said the international market was far too competitive to “preempt” if Australia would be able to purchase more.

Hunt noted that Australia currently had “enough [vaccine doses] to provide the whole population three times over”, with “one of the highest rates of dosing per population in the world”.

The majority of the 140m doses Australia had secured were the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, which appeared to have a significantly lower efficacy rate. But the true effectiveness of any vaccine would only be determined after widespread rollout in the general population.

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Meanwhile, South Australia is also set to reduce restrictions but had not budged on barring greater Sydney, Central Coast and Wollongong residents from entering the state.

The premier, Steven Marshall, said this was in response to the six cases identified in New South Wales last weekend. But he flagged these border measures would notionally be lifted from 31 January.

On Thursday he announced that within SA the cap on private gatherings would rise from 50 to 200 but larger groups would need to have a Covid-safe plan, appoint a marshall, keep a guest list and use a QR code.

SA reported two new cases on Thursday but both were in hotel quarantine.

While NSW and Queensland had reduced the number of returned international travellers they were accepting into hotel quarantine, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, on Thursday confirmed the state would be increasing its weekly cap “very soon”.

“We will get to a number that is agreed with the commonwealth government and we’ll get to a number that I think other states will be pleased to see,” Andrews told reporters. “But that has to be done safely.” The state had been accepting about 1,120 Australians a week since early December.

Due to the cap on arrivals, agreed upon by states and the federal government, thousands of citizens have been stranded overseas.

Andrews apologised to residents living next to one of the quarantine hotels after used PPE from overflowing biohazard bins ended up blowing into their apartment foyer.

He said a garbage truck “turned up late” at the View hotel on St Kilda Road and that arrangements were in place to ensure it did not happen again.