Trouble with the bubble
Quarantine-free travel from New South Wales is being suspended following the detection of two new Covid-19 cases in Sydney.
Flights from New South Wales were paused for 48 hours from 11.59pm last night.
People who have arrived from
Sydney over the past six days will be contacted by the National Contact Tracing team via email and by phone, if required. They will be asked if they visited any of the locations of interest linked to the community cases in Sydney.
Quarantine-free travel from Sydney has been paused following the detection of two new Covid-19 cases in the community.
Travel from New South Wales to New Zealand was suspended for 48 hours from 11.59pm yesterday. People can still travel to the Australian state without the need to quarantine.
Air New Zealand has cancelled all but one of its flights scheduled to take off today and tomorrow, but was still operating two flights from Sydney to New Zealand yesterday, before the travel suspension took effect.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said they would lift the travel restrictions or extend them, depending on how the situation unfolded. New Zealand health officials have been working with their Australian counterparts since the first Covid19 case was confirmed on Wednesday.
Yesterday, Australian officials confirmed the wife of the man who tested positive for the virus on Wednesday had also returned a positive test result. Both cases have been serologically linked to an overseas traveller who was in managed isolation, but how they were infected remains unknown.
It is ‘‘possible’’ there is a missing link with these cases, Hipkins said.
He acknowledged the flight pause would cause disruptions for travellers, but the possibility of turning the tap off and on was part of the trans-Tasman bubble arrangement from the start.
‘‘This isn’t a decision we take lightly, but we indicated when we opened up the trans-Tasman travel bubble that we would continue to be cautious.’’
The travel pause affected flights coming from New South Wales. It was up to Australian officials to make a decision on quarantine-free flights arriving from New Zealand, Hipkins said.
Hipkins said he has a lot of confidence in the NSW contact tracing system.
‘‘We’ve just got to let them do their job,’’ he said.
An Air NZ flight from Sydney to Wellington and another from
Sydney to Auckland operated normally last night, as both were due to depart before the travel cut-off time of 11.59pm (Sydney time).
Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and safety officer Captain David Morgan said Flight NZ113 would also fly from Auckland to Sydney this evening as normal.
‘‘All Air New Zealand flights to and from Sydney tomorrow [Friday] have been cancelled except for NZ113 which will operate from Auckland to Sydney as normal with customers and cargo,’’ Captain Morgan said.
‘‘The return service from Sydney to Auckland has been renumbered as NZ1104 and will operate as a cargo-only flight.’’
The airline is offering customers on canned flights the option to rebook, put their flight into credit, or receive a refund if they purchased a refundable ticket.
‘‘From an operational perspective, we have been here before with pauses in one-way quarantine-free travel to Australia over the past few months, and our teams are working hard behind the scenes to ensure our customers are kept up to date.’’
Before the suspension was announced, all flights from Sydney to New Zealand were operating with additional passenger health screening in place prior to boarding, an Air New Zealand spokeswoman said.
Around 6000 people who arrived from Sydney over the past six days will be contacted by the National Contact Tracing team via email, and then over the phone, if required, Hipkins said.
‘‘We indicated when we opened up the trans-Tasman travel bubble that we would continue to be cautious.’’
Chris Hipkins
Covid-19 Response Minister
Household gatherings will be restricted to 20 people and masks made compulsory in indoor areas across Greater Sydney, as health authorities work to trace one new local Covid-19 infection.
NSW reported two new coronavirus cases yesterday, after the wife of a man from Sydney’s eastern suburbs who tested positive on Wednesday morning was also found to have the virus.
The man, aged in his 50s, had not recently returned from overseas, did not work in quarantine and had no contacts with the hospital system, prompting urgent genomic testing to determine any genetic links to cases in the quarantine system or in other states.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced new restrictions for Sydney, the Central Coast and Blue Mountains enforceable from 5pm local time yesterday until 12.01am on Monday, in light of the community transmission, which brought an end to a month without local cases.
Household gatherings will be limited to 20 people, including children, masks will be compulsory on public transport and in public indoor areas, singing in indoor venues will not be allowed, dancing and drinking in venues will not be allowed (with a recommendation for wedding dance floors to be restricted to 20 people), and visitors at aged care facilities will be restricted to two.
‘‘We believe this is a proportionate response to the risk ahead of us,’’ the premier said, thanking the couple who have tested positive for using QR codes in their movements across Sydney. NSW Health issued new venues of concern related to the new case, including some in Sydney’s north, as investigations continued. Locations include a Woolworths and Chemist Warehouse in Double Bay and The Royal Sydney Golf Club in Rose Bay.
The venues alerts have sent hundreds of Sydneysiders into self-isolation, including NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet who will self-isolate at his home until next Friday after he learned he had visited the same central city cafe as the man on April 30.
Perrottet, who has returned a negative Covid-19 test, began isolating on Wednesday evening.
He had earlier been at Parliament House for question time on Wednesday.
The Sydney Swans’ AFL coaching staff and players from the Sydney Roosters NRL club have also been sent for testing after the man attended a Moore Park cafe they frequent following a trip to the SCG’s stadium club gym on Monday morning.
On Wednesday night, NSW Health revealed fragments of the virus had been detected in an inner west sewerage network, hours after it revealed the eastern suburbs man returned a positive result.