Victorians required to quarantine on arrival in NSW
Passengers arriving from Melbourne have their temperature checked at Sydney airport. Photo: Getty
People from NSW will be banned from Queensland from the weekend while those returning from coronavirus-hit Victoria to NSW will be forced into two weeks of hotel quarantine.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said entries to NSW from Victoria would be restricted to Sydney Airport, except for border communities with permits.
Those returning through Sydney Airport will then be sent into 14 days of hotel quarantine – as has been the policy for overseas arrivals for several months.
“We will do whatever it takes to keep NSW safe, that has always been our position, and there’s no doubt the situation in Victoria is top of mind for us,” Ms Berejiklian said on Wednesday.
“Our approach has been absolutely rigorous.”
NSW reported 12 new COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, which followed news the Queensland government had declared the entire state a virus hotspot.
The NSW-Queensland border will be again shut from 1am on Saturday.
“We have seen that Victoria is not getting better and we’re not going to wait for NSW to get worse. We need to act,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.
Ms Berejiklian said the decision was a matter for the Queensland government.
Of NSW’s 12 new cases on Wednesday, just one was in hotel quarantine. There were two linked to the Thai Rock Wetherill Park restaurant cluster, two connected to the Apollo restaurant in Potts Point and six associated with the funeral cluster.
One of the new cases was locally acquired with no known source.
- See a full list of affected NSW venues here
Earlier, Ms Berejiklian defended Sydney’s “rigorous” airport procedures designed to stop the spread of coronavirus from Victoria to NSW but says she’s willing to do more if required.
“Please know that we do have very rigorous processes in place … it’s literally a handful of Victorians that need to be in NSW,” she told ABC TV on Wednesday.
Up to 200 people have been flying into Sydney from Victoria every day.
Health officials check a traveller’s credentials at Sydney airport. Photo: Twitter/Brad Hazzard
Meanwhile, hundreds of Sydney students and teachers are waiting to see if they have contracted coronavirus after three pupils at two schools in the city’s south-west tested positive.
The three cases – one student from Bonnyrigg High School and two from Greenway Park Public School – are linked to the growing Mounties Club cluster in Mount Pritchard.
Both schools were closed on Tuesday for deep cleaning and contact tracing, with students and staff advised to self-isolate and get tested if unwell.
The schools resumed on-campus learning from Wednesday after NSW Health cleared them to reopen.
-with AAP
