Australian authorities today re-imposed social distancing measures in Sydney, one day after a 50-year-old man became the first domestic infection recorded in New South Wales state in more than a month.
New South Wales state health director Kerry Chant said testing showed that this person was infected with the Indian variant of nCoV and was related to an imported case from the US returning to Australia, but it was unclear how the two people were infected.
`We cannot find any direct link between these two cases, so we are concerned that there is an intermediate source of infection that has not been detected,` Chant said.
People lined up waiting to be tested for Covid-19 in Sydney on May 6.
This man may be the first case of infection with the Indian nCoV variant recorded in Australia.
The New South Wales government immediately issued regulations limiting household gatherings to no more than 20 people, limiting a maximum of two visitors to nursing facilities, in the context of Mother’s Day holiday taking place this weekend.
People on public transport and indoor locations are required to wear masks.
`We believe that in the short term, this is the most appropriate risk response,` said New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Faced with the above worrying information, New Zealand has partially suspended the free two-way travel agreement between the two countries, due to concerns that Covid-19 cases infected with the Indian variant could cause a major outbreak.
Chris Hipkins, the minister in charge of New Zealand’s anti-Covid-19 strategy, said that the country has temporarily suspended the quarantine-free travel policy for people coming to and from New South Wales state while authorities trace.
New Zealand and Australia applied free two-way travel on April 18, nearly 400 days after closing the border because of Covid-19.
Rapid tracing systems, travel restrictions and border closures have helped Australia slow the spread of Covid-19.
The federal government is under pressure to cancel the entry ban on people returning from India, which is sinking into the Covid-19 crisis with more than 300,000 infections per day.
Some sources say at least two repatriation flights will be deployed to India every week from mid-May to bring about 9,000 Australians home.
