After three and a half months the time has finally come for those of us in New South Wales to open the door and step outside into freedom! Reaching the long awaited 70% double vaccination rate will surely be the highlight of 2021 and now is the time to make the most of it.
Whether your eyebrows are resembling caterpillars or you’re hankering for a decent pint, now’s the time to book in those long overdue hair appointments and grab your mates for a hearty feed at your local pub and relish in this new era of freedom.
Here’s what you can and can’t do from today (Monday 11 October) onwards:
- You can have up to 10 fully vaccinated visitors to your place of residence. You cannot have a person aged over 16 years who is not fully vaccinated visit your place of residence, except in limited circumstances.
- Even if you are fully vaccinated, you must not visit a place of residence if any person at the place is aged over 16 years and is not fully vaccinated, if there are more than 10 other visitors at the place of residence and if any of the visitors at a place of residence who are aged over 16 years are not fully vaccinated.
- If you are fully vaccinated, you can participate in an outdoor public gathering of up to 30 people.
- Gyms and indoor recreation facilities, such as a squash court, table tennis centre, health studio, bowling alley, and ice rink can open. Up to 20 people can attend a group class at the gym or indoor recreation facility.
- Recreation facilities such as zoos, aquariums, sports stadiums, showgrounds, racecourses, motor racing tracks and theme parks, can open.
- Amusement centres, such as places to play billiards, pool, pinball machines or video game play centres and nightclubs are to remain closed to the public.
- Retail premises and businesses that provide goods or services can open and resume in store services to customers.
- Hairdressers, spas, nail salons, beauty salons, waxing salons, tanning salons, tattoo parlours and massage parlours can open.
- Hospitality premises, such as casinos, restaurants, cafes, function centres, food courts, take away food and drink premises, kiosks, micro-breweries or small distilleries, cellar doors, pubs, registered clubs, and small bars can re-open to customers to consume food and beverages on premises.
- Face mask rules are still ongoing and all people over the age of 12 must wear a face mask in indoor areas, while waiting for and on public transport, if you are working at a hospitality venue and dealing directly with members of the public and on an aircraft when the aircraft is flying above NSW and in the airport.
A person who is required to be fully vaccinated to enter premises must carry vaccination evidence with them and produce it for inspection to a police officer or authorised officer if requested, check in with the Service NSW app or provide your contact details to the occupier and follow the face mask rules.
To allow for even more restrictions to ease, an 80% double vaccination rate is what NSW is aiming for next and should be on track to meet it hopefully by next week. While 1 December sees more freedoms being granted for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people including a no person limit for events and entertainment.
For more information on NSW’s Covid-19 restrictions, please click here.
Photo by Nathan McBride on Unsplash
