Premier: Two Can Visit Beginning Friday

PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian said beginning Friday, two adults will be able to visit others in their home. 

The Premier explained that children may go with the adults and the number of people living in the home does not impact the overall number of adults, it is simply a limit of two adults visiting and said she trusted the people of New South Wales to do the right thing. 

The Premier said they were not going to limit the reasons for visiting, simply if it was to care for someone or to reduce social isolation

“(This is) not a licence to go wild and have massive parties,” said the Premier. 

“Be extra, extra careful, if you have a sniffle you shouldn’t be visiting anybody, you shouldn’t be out of your house frankly and you should be tested,” she said. 

During May some restrictions will be eased and the Premier said they anticipate there will be a rise in cases, but the health system was prepared. 

“I anticipate during May we will see more cases and that’s because when you increase activity, when you see people move around more frequently, you will see more cases,” she said. 

“But our health system will be able to cope with that because we’ve used this time during April to build up our capacity to get the extra PPE and to make sure we are ready whether that is in schools, whether it’s people going shopping, or whether it’s people now visiting houses at two adults at a time,” said Gladys Berejiklian. 

The Premier said numbers had reduced to a handful of cases each day during April which was a marked improvement on March when there were hundreds of cases each day. 

The Premier said they had used April to scale up the health system capacity and were ready to manage outbreaks, which she described as inevitable. 

“To prepare for the inevitable, and the inevitable is there will be some communities where there is a breakout in cases, there will be instances where we have to shut down a school temporarily and we need to be ready for that,” she said. 

“A sniffle means stay at home,” said the Premier. 

Essential Items

The Premier said it was pleasing to see more businesses reopening their doors and confidence returning. The Premier further explained New South Wales has not stipulated what items are seen as essential and so people are free to go shopping at stores which are open, but cautioned social distancing was to be used at all times. 

Health Update

The government is aiming to have an average of 8,000 tests per day and continue to urge people to come forward for testing. During the weekend, numbers of testing did not dip, which was described as a pleasing change. 

• 5 new cases – all known sources
• 4,104 people tested
• 3,009 confirmed cases
• 2,243 people recovered
• 1 death – 37 in total
• 142 people being treated
• 19 people in ICU
• 15 people requiring ventilators
• Three-quarters of patients being managed outside the hospital setting

The person who died was an 89 year old resident of the Anglicare aged care home. The facility has had seven deaths, one new case has been identified in a staff member, bringing the total number of infected to 54 cases, including 20 staff and 34 residents. 

Planning Projects

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Rob Stokes announced 24 new projects will be fast tracked to create 9,000 new jobs.

“400,000 people are employed directly in building and construction and one in four people are indirectly linked,” said Minister Stokes. 

“The planning system is one of the key leavers to move into the recovery phase of covid-19,” he said.