Covid-19: How Many Kilometres is Too Far?

TOMORROW as restrictions ease slightly two adults will be allowed to visit others in their home.

There has been a lot of confusion about the rules around this so let’s break it down:

How far is too far?

In New South Wales there is no restriction on the distance you can travel to visit someone. However the spirit is that you should not take advantage of it by having a sneaky holiday or long weekend. The spirit is that you can visit someone to provide care and help reduce people’s social isolation.

NO: You can’t travel to Byron Bay to visit a friend, when your real motivation is to go to Byron Bay for a few days.

YES: You can go to Byron Bay if your mother lives there and you are genuinely concerned for her. If a scenario like this is what you have in mind, then also think about your visit and how you can ensure they are protected from the virus. Remember you may be asymptomatic, or not be showing any signs of the disease and the next day you have symptoms of the virus and you may have infected a vulnerable person. So think about how you will protect people during your visit.

Is it only two adults or can children go?

YES: Children can go with you. So you can have two adults and three children. There is a limit on the number of adults, but not a limit on children so that in practicality if a mum was visiting a friend’s place and had three children in her care she could visit. However, apply some commonsense and consider how you might keep numbers down for visits.

NO: It does not mean two adults can take 13 children with them to visit someone, who then happen to have a birthday party, which constitutes a large gathering.  

How many adults can be in the house?

YES: Only two adults can visit someone in their home. The number of adults who live in the home is irrelevant, because they are all already in close contact.

NO: You can’t get 10 adults together in the house with a few saying they are “moving in” and now live there as a story to explain away having a large gathering.

How many houses can I visit?

There is no restriction on how many houses you can visit. BUT:

NO: Don’t visit a heap of people in their homes. We are all trying to get a pandemic under control so we can get back to some sense of normality. For example if you visit 5 homes in one day and you spend more than 15 minutes in each home. Then the next day you start to have a scratchy throat and later find you have covid-19. A confirmed contact in public health tracing is someone you have spent 15 minutes or more with, so think about that conversation with public health as you list five homes and have to identify the people in each of those five homes and think about how many people you have exposed to the virus. 

YES: Go for an occasional visit to a friends home. Think about how long you will be there. Think about how you are going to reduce your chance of infection while you are there. Before you go to visit, give them a call and talk about the parameters you both think should be in place.

Does it mean people can start visiting regional areas from Sydney?

NO: See the first question which uses going to Byron Bay as an example, it’s the same concept. It is critically important to protect our regional areas. We are small communities that even a small spread can impact a high percentage of the population and can more easily overwhelm our health facilities, where we don’t have intensive care beds.

YES: If there is a seriously genuine need for them to provide a level of care and reduce someone’s social isolation. Again, think about how this can be done with minimum risk of spreading the disease and protecting regional communities.

Bottom Line

Be honest with yourself about your motivation and that will indicate if it is reasonable or not. Remember the actions you take may have to be explained in court before a Magistrate and they tend to have a very good radar for people who are trying to bend the rules. So, your friends might believe you and collaborate, but think about explaining it to the police or a magistrate. Sconeite’s ask yourselves this: What Would Magistrate Prowse Say If You Came Before Him?

Let’s Not Go Back To Where We Started

The easing of this restriction is to reduce some social isolation. But if this is abused by enough people the chance of the virus spreading increases. We’ve all seen how quickly a few cases can skyrocket to hundreds. The numbers in New South Wales are getting better, but it does not take much to change that and be back to more stringent restrictions, which will impact everyone. We’ve all learnt the hard way about infection control and social distancing, we have the skills, keep using them, even when you visit people in their home.