coronavirus, covid, canberra covid, summer, canberra summer, act health
More people gathering outside due to warmer weather along with end-of-year celebrations could increase the risk of COVID in the ACT in coming months, health authorities have warned. Marking the beginning of summer on Tuesday, acting ACT chief health officer Vanessa Johnston urged Canberrans to be more alert during the warmer months with more large gatherings and festivities taking place. “If a case was to occur there’s a much greater risk of transmission into the wider community and people need to stay vigilant,” Dr Johnston said. “When things start to open up, like gathering restrictions being relaxed, then people can become complacent. “What I’m asking people is to celebrate, it’s been a hard year, but stay COVID-safe.” The warning comes as COVID restrictions are set to ease further on Wednesday. Businesses that have registered with the Check In CBR contact tracing app will be allowed to have one person per two square metres in their venues. More than 2700 businesses across the ACT have signed up to the Check In CBR app, which has been downloaded more than 80,000 times since it was launched. Canberrans have been also urged to avoid large crowds where social distancing is difficult to be carried out, such as busy times at shopping centres during the Christmas rush. Dr Johnston said COVID considerations should also be made when hosting events during the summer period. “When the weather permits, host celebrations outdoors or if you hold an event inside, increase the ventilation inside. “When Canberrans are out and about … take extra care with people particularly with others you don’t know and if an area is too crowded, stay away and go back another time.” Despite the larger gatherings being held across the city and bars, pubs and restaurants allowed to have more patrons, ACT police have said compliance patrols won’t be ramped up during summer. Chief police officer Neil Gaughan said regular patrols were already carried out would continue at pre-existing levels. “Compliance checks are the same as they have been,” he said. “We’ll be patrolling precincts and making sure that people do the right thing and comply with the restrictions so Canberrans can enjoy their summer as much as possible.” Deputy commissioner Gaughan said while the issue had gone away since the earlier days of the pandemic, some Canberrans were still leaving fake names on contact tracing forms at venues across the city. READ MORE: “I think people are well educated at what the restrictions are, and we have focused our entire police arrangement around coronavirus that we’ve been maintaining an education process,” he said. “We’ll be flexible where we nee to be, but if people are blatantly going outside the rules, we’ll issue infringements.” For faster access to the latest Canberra news, download The Canberra Times app for iOS and Android.
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More people gathering outside due to warmer weather along with end-of-year celebrations could increase the risk of COVID in the ACT in coming months, health authorities have warned.
Marking the beginning of summer on Tuesday, acting ACT chief health officer Vanessa Johnston urged Canberrans to be more alert during the warmer months with more large gatherings and festivities taking place.
“If a case was to occur there’s a much greater risk of transmission into the wider community and people need to stay vigilant,” Dr Johnston said.
“When things start to open up, like gathering restrictions being relaxed, then people can become complacent.
“What I’m asking people is to celebrate, it’s been a hard year, but stay COVID-safe.”
Businesses that have registered with the Check In CBR contact tracing app will be allowed to have one person per two square metres in their venues.
More than 2700 businesses across the ACT have signed up to the Check In CBR app, which has been downloaded more than 80,000 times since it was launched.
Canberrans have been also urged to avoid large crowds where social distancing is difficult to be carried out, such as busy times at shopping centres during the Christmas rush.
Dr Johnston said COVID considerations should also be made when hosting events during the summer period.
“When the weather permits, host celebrations outdoors or if you hold an event inside, increase the ventilation inside.
“When Canberrans are out and about … take extra care with people particularly with others you don’t know and if an area is too crowded, stay away and go back another time.”
Despite the larger gatherings being held across the city and bars, pubs and restaurants allowed to have more patrons, ACT police have said compliance patrols won’t be ramped up during summer.
Chief police officer Neil Gaughan said regular patrols were already carried out would continue at pre-existing levels.
“Compliance checks are the same as they have been,” he said.
“We’ll be patrolling precincts and making sure that people do the right thing and comply with the restrictions so Canberrans can enjoy their summer as much as possible.”
“I think people are well educated at what the restrictions are, and we have focused our entire police arrangement around coronavirus that we’ve been maintaining an education process,” he said.
“We’ll be flexible where we nee to be, but if people are blatantly going outside the rules, we’ll issue infringements.”
ACT acting chief health officer Dr Vanessa Johnston. Picture: Karleen Minney
