Coast Commuters ordered to stay at home

Central Coast residents whose usual places of work are in the local government area (LGA) of Woolahra, Waverley, Randwick or City of Sydney have been ordered to stay at home for at least a week from Friday, June 25.

The stay-at-home orders were an additional measure announced by Premier Gladys Berejiklian at her Friday COVID press conference “to protect the people of NSW from the evolving COVID-19 outbreak”.

“Anybody who has been working in those LGAs needs to basically go into lockdown for the week,” said Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast, Adam Crouch.

“That is obviously a precautionary issue that the Premier and Dr Chant have announced,” Crouch said.

“It’s not something we take lightly but obviously this is to help keep people safe.”

Although stating the measures were “not a matter of panicking, we just need to be vigilant” Crouch said holiday makers planning to visit the Central Coast from Sydney had been asked to stay at home and restrict travel to keep everybody safe. 

“The right thing to do now is to stay home and isolate,” he said.

Crouch said the Central Coast community had done an amazing job keeping safe throughout COVID 19 achieving no community transmissions since last August.

“While we know it is inconvenient we know it is the best thing for our community to keep us all safe,” he said.

He said he’d had his first COVID-19 test yesterday which was negative and had attended the testing clinic at Gosford Hospital to have his second test today.

Crouch encouraged anyone with symptoms or who had been in any of those LGAs get tested.

All current restrictions were also extended to at least midnight on Friday, July 2.

From 11.59pm tonight (Friday, June 25) until at least 11.59pm on Friday, July 2, people whose usual place of work is in one of the (above) four Sydney LGAs must stay at home unless it is for an essential reason.

The reasons commuters may leave their homes included: shopping for food or other essential goods and services; medical care or compassionate needs; exercise outdoors in groups of 10 or fewer; essential work, or education, where you cannot work or study from home.

People should only enter the four LGAs for essential purposes and residents in those locations have also been told to stay at home. 

Anyone who has been to Greater Sydney in the past 14 days must wear a face mask when indoors and at permitted outdoor gatherings.

Residents across greater Sydney, including the Central Coast, were told to limit unnecessary activity and avoid large gatherings in coming days and comply with the current restrictions.

Greater Sydney employers have been told they “must allow an employee to work from home if it is reasonably practicable to do so” but if you go to your workplace you must wear a face mask unless you have an exemption.

Capacity limits of the greater of 25 people or one person per four square metres have been placed on premises such as restaurants.

Stadiums, entertainment facilities such as cinemas, commercial activities on vessels, caravan parks and camp grounds, holiday homes and short-term rentals are not included in those capacity limits.

Cinemas, theatres, music and concert halls along with major recreation facilities such as stadiums and race tracks can have the greater of 50% of their usual capacity or one person per four square metres.

Up to five visitors may visit another household at one time including children and adults.

Up to five people may stay in a holiday home or short-term rental unless they are from the same household.

A gathering at a holiday home or short-term rental is limited to five people.

Visitors and occupiers of holiday homes and short-term rentals will be held responsible for enforcing the limits.

If anyone was staying at a holiday home or short-term rental with more than five people immediately before 6.20pm on Wednesday, June 23, no additional people can move into the premises after that time.

Jackie Pearson

_{Verified information sources : NSW Health Information media release June 25, 2021. Zoom interview Adam Crouch MP June 25, 2021.}