Sydney Oct 11 (BUS): The lockdown in Australia’s New South Wales ended on Monday after 106 days, nearly 63,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 430 deaths.
Stay-at-home orders for Greater Sydney residents made in late June in an effort to combat the coronavirus outbreak were raised on Monday after the state crossed the 70 per cent threshold of eligible residents that had been hit twice in the previous week.
Fully vaccinated residents will now be allowed to gather outdoors in groups of up to 30 people and have up to 10 visitors to their homes.
Retail, hospitality and services such as hairdressers, tattoo studios and recreation including gyms will reopen for 1 person per 4 square meters (m) indoors and 1 person per 2 square metres outdoors.
Large outdoor sites such as zoos and playgrounds will reopen with density limits for up to 5,000 people and indoor entertainment including cinemas and museums will reopen with a maximum density or fixed seat capacity of 75 percent.
The NSW government said students are also set to return to on-site learning from October 25 as part of the roadmap reopening, German news agency dpa reports.
Until December 1, the relaxation of all rules will apply only to those who have had two doses of the vaccine.
Residents of Greater Sydney, who since mid-August have not been allowed to travel more than 5 km from their homes, will be able to travel freely in the area, although they will not be allowed to go to regional areas, where vaccination rates are lower, up to 80 per cent of the population. All over the state they are being double stabbed.
Some parts of the regional state of New South Wales came out of lockdown early because they were considered low risk.
The lockdown has been lifted although local transmission is still happening for the first time in Australia, as some parts of the country switched from eradicating Covid-19 to a strategy of suppression after failing to contain several delta-variable outbreaks.
New South Wales, which at the height of the current outbreak in early September recorded more than 1,500 new cases, reported 496 locally acquired infections and eight more deaths on Monday.
As of Monday, 73.5 per cent of the eligible population in NSW had been double stabbed and more than 90 per cent had received a single dose.
Just under 62 percent of the country’s full vaccinations have been completed.
HF