New South Wales has recorded its lowest Covid case numbers in three months, on the eve of the state’s quarantine-free reopening to vaccinated Australian overseas arrivals.
The state recorded 177 locally acquired Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours.
From Monday, vaccinated citizens will be allowed to travel overseas and return without quarantining as NSW and Victoria open their international borders for the first time since the pandemic began.
NSW will allow vaccinated Australian citizens, residents and their immediate families to return from overseas without the need to undergo 14 days in hotel quarantine. Vaccinated overseas arrivals who are currently quarantining in the state will be released.
Unrestricted travel between greater Sydney and regional NSW will also be allowed from Monday. Travel within the state was originally planned to resume when NSW hit its 80% vaccination target, but was delayed to allow time for vaccination rates in regional NSW to increase.
At a press conference on Sunday, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet described 1 November as “an exciting day”.
“Regional travel is back. For the first time in a long time, grandparents will be able to visit their grandkids, which they have not been able to do for many months,” he said.
“Our vaccination rate has been the key to our freedom,” Perrottet said. “Our case numbers are below where we expect them to be, our hospitalisation numbers are below where we expect them to be.”
In NSW, 93.5% of people aged 16 and older have had one vaccine dose. There was one Covid death in the state in the last reporting period, and 340 people are currently hospitalised.
NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the state government chose not to wait for the federal government to vaccinate Indigenous communities and people with disabilities.
“In regard to the Aboriginal community and also people with disabilities, both of those areas were of course theoretically going to be done by the federal government,” he said.
“As matters progressed, New South Wales made the decision that we would actually do what we needed to do … and not just sit back and wait for the federal government to do it.”
From Monday, state-run clinics in NSW will also offer booster Covid vaccine doses to adults aged 18 and older.
People will be able to get a booster shot six months after they received their second Covid-19 vaccine dose.
Regardless of what Covid vaccine they received for their first and second doses, people will get a Pfizer jab as their booster.
Third doses are already available to people aged 12 and older who are severely immunocompromised.
On Sunday, Hazzard described the lowest Covid case numbers in three months as “fantastic news”, noting there was “a lot more to do”.
“We know that the virus is going to be around with us for many years to come, and it does mean that each and every one of us have to still take it very seriously.”
Hazzard said it was “really satisfying” that the state recorded more than 75,000 tests in the previous 24 hours.
“Even as we’re opening up, even as people are getting those freedoms, the community has also well and truly understood the importance of keeping this virus at bay by going out and getting tested,” he said.
Meanwhile, Victoria recorded 1036 new Covid cases and 12 deaths, as the state hit its 80% target for fully vaccinated adults.
There are currently 702 Victorians in hospital with the virus. Of those hospitalised, 128 are in intensive care and 80 are being ventilated.
