Sydney`s cafes, gyms and restaurants welcomed back fully vaccinated customers on Monday after nearly four months of lockdown, as Australia aims to begin living with the coronavirus and gradually reopen with high rates of inoculation.
Some pubs in Sydney, Australia`s largest city, opened at 12:01 a.m. (1301 GMT Sunday) and friends and families huddled together for a midnight beer, television footage and social media images showed.
“I see it as a day of freedom, it`s a freedom day,” New South Wales (NSW) state Premier Dominic Perrottet told reporters in Sydney, the state capital. “We are leading the nation out of this pandemic but this will be a challenge.”
Perrottet warned that infections would rise after reopening, and virusfree states such as Western Australia and Queensland are watching what living with COVID19 is going to look like amid concerns health systems could be overwhelmed.
While NSW`s dualdose vaccination rate in people above 16 hit 74%, in neighbouring Queensland, whose borders remain closed to Sydneysiders, the rate is only 52% and the state government is following an elimination strategy with rapid lockdowns to control any outbreak.
Perrottet has declared the closures in New South Wales over and strongly supports the reopening in Sydney, whose more than 5 million residents have been placed under strict restrictions since mid-June following an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant.
Since then, the outbreak has spread to Melbourne and Canberra, leading to closures in those cities even as the number of cases falls in New South Wales. 4,444 New South Wales reported 496 new locally acquired cases on Monday, well below its peak last month, while Victoria recorded 1,612 new infections, the lowest in five days.
Under New South Wales’ relaxed rules, retail stores and restaurants were reopened at reduced capacity, and more vaccinated people were allowed to gather in homes and attend weddings and funerals.
The state is targeting an 80% vaccination rate by the end of October if additional restrictions are relaxed. But the unvaccinated have to stay home until December 1.
Steven Speed, the owner of Sydney’s oldest pub, Fortune of War, told Reuters he expected it to be the last closure after 18 months of restrictions.
“The closing and opening, closing and opening costs are huge,” said Speed, whose most loyal customers returned Monday at 9:00 am for their first post-closing beer with friends.
Kyl Raggio, owner of the KR Performance gym in Randwick, a Sydney suburb, said Australia could no longer afford to rely on rolling shutters to fight the virus.
“I hope we can deal with what happens now, and with a view to the rest of the world, hopefully we can stay open and do our thing,” said Raggio, who welcomed his clients to his training facility Monday morning. early.
Elections are approaching
Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged Sydney residents to “enjoy the moment.”
“Today is a day that many have looked forward to the day when we will celebrate the things we take for granted,” he said.
Morrison, who is due to call elections before next May, has been pressured to urge all states to reopen their borders to strengthen economies and close families separated by state lines before Christmas before reunification allows. Some states with few cases have not said when they will reopen their borders.
With vaccine adoption gaining ground, Australia plans a staggered return to normality so that fully vaccinated residents can travel freely in and out of the country starting in November, although New South Wales plans to advance these dates. 4,444 Australia closed its international borders in March 2020, helping to keep coronavirus numbers relatively low, 130,000 cases and 1,448 deaths.
