As the Victorian Covid-19 outbreak worsens and threatens to spill into New South Wales in a serious way, the ‘open borders Australia’ that grey nomads had been dreaming of appears under serious threat.
The South Australian Premier Steven Marshall has just announced that restrictions on travel from New South Wales and the ACT will no longer ease next week as planned. Visitors from those states were to be allowed into South Australia without quarantining from July 20, but that is no longer the case.
Mr Marshall said there was just too much uncertainty around the Covid-19 situation in New South Wales to open the borders at this stage.
Similarly, having just opened its borders to everyone except Victorians last week, Queensland has now declared coronavirus hotspots in several areas of New South Wales. Any non-Queensland residents who have visited, or visit, the Campbelltown and Liverpool city areas will not be allowed entry into Queensland.
This follows a cluster of 21 cases connected to the Crossroads Hotel in the Hume Highway in south western Sydney.
Queenslanders who have been to the hotspots, or travel there in the future, will be forced into hotel quarantine when re-entering the state, at their own cost.
The Queensland Government is also to introduce jail time for people caught lying about their movements while attempting to cross the border. The maximum penalty is currently $4,003, but this is not thought to be enough of a deterrent to stop people making false declarations.
In Victoria, another 270 cases have been detected in the past 24 hours. Of those cases, only 28 are linked to known and contained outbreaks. The other 242 are under investigation.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said with such large numbers of new cases each day, contact tracing had become a challenge.
Mr Andrews said a team of 200 Ambulance Victoria staff were being assembled to help the state’s public health team in the battle against Covid-19.
“As the task grows, the team needs to grow too,” he said.
All of this is deeply unsettling news for grey nomads, many of whom were just starting to return to the road with a degree of confidence. The speed with which these outbreaks can take hold, and the speed with which travel restrictions can be re-imposed, serves as a brutal reminder of just how volatile the situation is.
Yes. I live in suburb next ti Miverpool,BUT never been to these areas, have self isolated in Caravan since end March, been to Coles to get food and nowhere else and now was to restart my travels in August to Nth Qld and I cant
Your not the only one
Any travelling we planned was to be within 4 hours of home because things were changing quickly. Now with the Qld. border opened we may now cancel all plans.
Does this mean we cannot drive through on the Hume Highway to access the NorthCoast?
Yes
Qld should close the border to NSW travellers as some cannot be trusted to tell the truth about their whereabouts. We don’t want or need an outbreak in QLD like that in NSW @ VIC