All residents of Australia’s largest city will be required to wear masks starting on Monday when shopping, on public transport, in cinemas, casinos and in places of worship.
Photographer: David Gray / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: David Gray / AFP / Getty Images
Masks in Sydney will become mandatory in most closed public places, as Australian health officials struggle to control the new groups of viruses that interrupted the country’s peak summer vacation.
All residents of Australia’s largest city will be required to wear masks from Monday when shopping, on public transport, in cinemas and casinos and in places of worship, New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney on Saturday. Individuals who violate the rule, which also applies to Wollongong, Central Coast and Blue Mountains, will receive a fine of A $ 200 ($ 154), she said.
New South Wales added seven new cases acquired locally in the past 24 hours, increasing the size of a cluster originally confined to Sydney’s Northern Beaches region, which has spread to other areas of the city and has already infected more than 150 people. The debut on Saturday announced other restrictions, including limiting the size of gym classes, weddings and funerals.
“This strategy in New South Wales is to keep life as normal as possible, but also to ensure that we will maintain and even increase economic activity,” said Berejiklian.
The announcement came at a time when the neighboring state of Victoria said it had detected 10 new cases of viruses acquired through local transmission, most linked to an outbreak in the capital Melbourne. This city last year suffered one of the biggest the longest and most rigid lockdowns, and before it was the only place in Australia where wearing a mask had become mandatory.
Australia was able to largely suppress the broadcast of the community through rigorous testing and contact tracking, and by placing restrictions on international arrivals and isolating all travelers returning from travel abroad for 14 days in quarantined hotels.
Authorities believe the new outbreaks in Australia’s two most populous states are likely to be related to the removal of many interstate border restrictions, allowing people to travel more freely during the peak of the summer holiday season. The detection of the last clusters has led some states to reinstall rigid borders, wreaking havoc for thousands of families who traveled interstate on vacation.
Berejiklian said on Friday that he did not regard Victoria’s decision to close its border with New South Wales as “a good use of resources”. On Saturday, Victoria’s Minister of Health, Martin Foley, responded by saying that he “did not apologize” for the decision after transmission tests showed that his state’s outbreak originated in Sydney.
The New South Wales branch of the Australian Medical Association welcomed the decision to make masks mandatory in Sydney after Victoria’s decision to implement the measure across the state on Thursday.
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“This is a crucial decision – especially as more people will return to work after the holidays and the trains and buses will become increasingly crowded,” the agency said in a statement.
Other changes to the rules announced on Saturday included making the southern areas of Northern Beaches seen as part of Greater Sydney, allowing for some restrictions on the suburbs. For the rest of the region, requests to stay at home will remain in effect until January 9, without permission for visitors and non-essential closed deals.
Despite the latest restrictions on Sydney, Berejiklian said she remains committed to allowing a cricket match to continue from 7 January at the Sydney Cricket Ground, between Australia and India. The game will have multitudes of up until 24,000 people a day for up to five days.
“This is an example where the New South Wales government’s strategy is to maintain jobs, maintain community morale and well-being, while making sure that we are protected from Covid,” she said.
(Updates with new details throughout the 8th paragraph.)