COVID-19 update: NSW restrictions explained as lockdown is extended
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NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has announced that the two-week lockdown restrictions for greater Sydney, Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong will be extended for an extra week until midnight of Friday, July 16.
Students in greater Sydney, Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong will also do a week of remote schooling starting July 13 while students in remote areas will go back to school.
People cannot leave their homes unless for these reasons:
- Shopping for food or other essential goods and services;
- Medical care or compassionate needs (people can leave home to have a COVID-19 vaccination unless you have been identified as a close contact);
- Exercise outdoors in groups of 10 or fewer;
- Essential work, or education, where you cannot work or study from home.
What about food businesses and entertainment?
Food businesses are only allowed to open for take-aways while supermarkets and grocery stores will be open throughout the lockdown. Entertainment facilities, such as cinemas, theatres, concert halls, music halls and dance halls and amusement centres, and places to play billiards, pool, pinball machines or video games are all closed.
Weddings and Funerals
Weddings will not be permitted from 11.59 pm, Sunday 27 June.
Funerals will be limited to one person per four square metres with a cap of 100 people, and masks must be worn indoors.
Can people exercise?
Exercise will be allowed indoors but in no more than groups of 10. The NSW restrictions state that no community sport in Greater Sydney, including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour should proceed.
Can people visit my house?
If you live in greater Sydney, you must comply with the stay-at-home rules. Visiting another person will require a reasonable excuse to go out and be away from your place of residence.
A visitor does not include a person who visits your house for the following purpose:
- For work or attend a university or other tertiary education facility
- For childcare
- As a carer
- To provide care or assistance to a vulnerable person
- To give effect to arrangements between parents and children under 18 or their siblings
- To assist a person to move places of residence
- To avoid an injury or serious risk of harm
- Because of an emergency
- For compassionate reasons
- To view or inspect the property to lease or purchase it
In all other parts of NSW, the following lockdown restrictions will also continue to apply until 11.59 pm, Friday 16 July:
- People who have been in the Greater Sydney region (including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong) on or after June 21 should follow the stay-at-home orders for a period of 14 days after they left Greater Sydney;
- Visitors to households will be limited to 5 guests – including children;
- Masks will be compulsory in all indoor non-residential settings, including workplaces, and at organised outdoor events;
- Drinking while standing at indoor venues will not be allowed;
- Capacity limits continue to apply, with premises permitted the greater of:
- 25 people, or
- 1 person per 4sqm rule;
- Singing by audiences and choirs at indoor venues or by congregants at indoor places of worship will not be allowed;
- Dancing will not be allowed at indoor hospitality venues or nightclubs however, dancing is allowed at weddings for the wedding party only (no more than 20 people);
- Dance and gym classes limited to 20 per class (masks must be worn);
- The one person per four square metre rule will be re-introduced for all indoor and outdoor settings, including weddings and funerals;
- Outdoor seated, ticketed events will be limited to 50 per cent seated capacity.
Based on a city where the mountain meets the sea and where antique houses line the streets, my mind is free to wonder, to wander and to write.
