The NSW Government has just announced updated rules in regards to COVID-19 including changes around close contacts and international travel.
Close contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 case will not be required to isolate, provided they comply with NSW Health guidelines.
There are no changes for positive cases: the seven-day isolation requirement remains in place for anyone who has recorded a positive RAT or PCR result.
From 6pm this Friday, 22 April, close contacts (defined as a household contact or an individual deemed by NSW Health to be a close contact) will not have to isolate, as long as they have no symptoms and comply with the following guidelines:
• Do not visit aged care, hospitals, disability, and correctional facilities unless a special exemption applies;
• Wear a face mask in indoor settings outside the home;
• Undertake daily RAT tests before coming into close contact with people outside their household, where practicable;
• Avoid contact with elderly and immunocompromised persons where possible;
• Work from home where practical;
• Notify their employer/educational facility that they are a close contact, and that they are not required to isolate as long as they comply with the above.
Close contacts will need to comply with the above guidelines for seven days from the time a person in their household tested positive for COVID-19.
Health orders requiring key workforces to be vaccinated lifted
Public health orders requiring key workforces to be vaccinated will be lifted, with vaccine requirements to be based on risk assessments under occupational work health and safety, in line with other jurisdictions. Orders requiring aged care and disability workers to be vaccinated will remain in force.
Consultation will take place with relevant stakeholders with details to be finalised in coming weeks.
These changes will mean the critical worker exemptions from isolation rules will no longer be required. However, close contacts will still need to comply with any COVID-19 safety measures that have been put in place in their workplace by employers.
Unvaccinated international returning travellers
From 30 April 2022, unvaccinated international returning travellers will not be required to undertake hotel quarantine. The current requirements for fully vaccinated travellers, including taking a Rapid Antigen Test within 24 hours of arrival and complying with the NSW Health guidelines, will be extended to unvaccinated travellers.
Public transport capacity caps will also be lifted with the requirement to wear masks on public transport, planes, and indoors at airports and cruise terminals to remain in place.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said the lifting of isolation rules for close contacts were common-sense changes that would allow us to continue to move forward out of the pandemic.
‘These isolation rules have been necessary but thanks to our strong vaccination rates, we can make the changes announced today.
‘This will provide immediate relief for so many workforces and businesses who have been hit hard by labour shortages as people are forced to isolate because they are a household contact.
‘As the pandemic has evolved so has our response and this is another example where we have been able to make necessary changes safely and in a measured way.
School settings when Term 2 begins
In line with these changes the NSW Government is also working with health officials to finalise school settings before Term 2 begins, and further information in this regard will be released in the coming days.
In preparation for winter, the NSW Government will also continue to ensure Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) are available to help protect vulnerable cohorts, including people with a disability, children, and young people in out-of-home care, vulnerable CALD communities and Aboriginal communities.
These RATs will be distributed to individuals and relevant service providers through the Department of Communities and Justice’s Stronger Communities agencies.
More information is available at nsw.gov.au.
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Let’s not forget that Covid-19 is still a big issue in our community with 31,935 cases reported across Australia in the last week – an average of 4,562 cases per day. The Global Carbon Budget is about to be refreshed, giving the world a critical insight into how efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are (or are not) progressing. Masks will no longer be mandatory on public transport from tomorrow, Wednesday 21 September. SW Police are urging festival-goers at this weekend’s music festival to celebrate in a safe and responsible manner, whilst also being aware of COVID-Safety measures. The Northern NSW Local Health District reports that to 4pm yesterday, Sunday May 22, there were 40 COVID-19 positive patients in hospital in Northern NSW, with one of these in ICU. The AEC says that voters who have recently tested positive for COVID-19 will be able to phone in their vote in the federal election. The Northern NSW Local Health District says that to 4pm yesterday, 15 May, 384 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the District, including 82 positive PCR tests and 302 positive rapid antigen tests. Volunteering Australia says volleys are the backbone of the country in times of crisis and emergency.
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I reckon they’ll regret it.
Hasn’t been a problem in other states. Covid cases are out of control all around the country. It’s victims describe it as a scratchy throat and a little flu like but kinda makes you feel weird for a day or two. Don’t know what it’s like for people who are jabbed though, my friends are all unvaxxed.
I always base my research on what’s happening to my friends. Clearly a broad, thorough and controlled study on which to draw conclusions. Lucky there’s that stratospheric Homo Sapiens IQ to see the patterns.
Really Liz? I thought you let other people do your thinking for you and ignored your lying eyes.
Surely the experts that are funded by the companies that just made a ton of money, have to be telling the truth.
I mean they must know what they are talking about, they are the ones that train all the government health advisers around the world. The WHO has backed them up and they must be a good organisation or Bill Gates wouldn’t be their biggest funder. Does anyone remember why Bill Gates is banned from the country of India? Maybe they didn’t like Geniuses.
Anyway I have to take my wife to the doctor for some tests. She has been on Prazole for years to prevent cancer and now the doctors say Prazole causes cancer. It’s only been on the market for 25 years and since they make tens of billions of dollars world wide off of it every year, they haven’t really had the time nor money to check if they were killing their patients. Aren’t you glad we live in a world where the corporations can be trusted and care so deeply about us and the environment, and get along so closely with our caring and un-corruptable politicians that always tell us the truth. Safe and Effective
Really Christian? How little you know about me. I don’t let anybody do my thinking for me, I have my own fully equipped state of the art bio lab 🔬 at home and I conduct all my own research from scratch. I find it’s best not to trust anyone; you’ve no idea the fallacies I’ve found doing my own research – on my friends.
A pity the 49 people who died today from it can’t inform you what it was like for them.
That’s in NSW today.
Did they died of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Maybe it was the babies on bayonets.
Or maybe WTC7 fell on them. Maybe it was the mines in Havana harbor. It could have been the torpedoes in the gulf of Tonkin. Maybe Al-assad gassed them when he was gassing his own supporters.
It could have been global cooling caused by SO2,I mean global cooling by CO2, no Global Warming by CO2, better make that Climate Change, let’s make it climate extremes that will flood all coastal cities by the year 2000, I mean melt all glaciers by 2020, I mean end the world by 2032.
And the TV reported in 2002 that Bin Laden died from his late stage kidney disease, but then he started popping back up a few years later and looked along younger and then they reported that seal team 6 killed him, then a week later every member of seal team 6 suddenly died.
Are you sure you got it right chris, because if you pay attention to what the media says, and have a memory, it can get very confusing. And why did no one care about the 2017 flu epidemic that killed 700 Australians then spread around the world killing the old and immuno-comprosised?. And what happened to flu and pneumonia around the world in the last 2 years. Maybe the masked stopped them killing people cause world wide numbers dropped to near nothing. But Influenza A is more infectious than covid the expert say. And how are there any Ukrainians for the Russians to fight given barely any of them got jabbed, and even talking about covid was banned in Belarus, But those countries death rates didn’t go up. I must be missing something.
I must just have trouble understanding what the corporate media tells me. I have the same trouble understanding what Q-Anon says and for the exact same reasons.
Remember how we were going to run out of food in 1985 and oil in 2005. Maybe that’s why we are getting price hikes now. That damn Putin that doesn’t grow our food or supply us with the oil we use.