Canberra's future Covid restrictions will depend on regional NSW's success in eliminating the virus in the area surrounding the ACT rather than a hard border, Chief Minister Andrew Barr says.
Mr Barr said the ACT, NSW and Commonwealth governments were continuing talks about how to manage outbreaks and cross-border arrangements in the Canberra region.
"We've been having these conversations for a while now and when the time is right and when we've concluded those discussions between the three governments ... and have an agreed set of public health directions and settings, we'll be able to put those in place," Mr Barr said.
"But that's still several weeks away and clearly is contingent on good outcomes from our lockdown and good outcomes from the regional NSW lockdown."
Mr Barr reaffirmed the ACT government's view that a hard border between the territory and NSW was not an option, and it was impossible to eliminate the risk of COVID-19 entering the ACT.
"There will always need to be a movement of people across the border, and as I've indicated previously, the idea of an absolutely sealed bubble that would mean the virus could never get in, is just not feasible," he said.
"Even if you could keep everyone who wasn't an ACT resident out, ACT residents would be entitled to return home and could bring the virus back with them."
Mr Barr said the ACT would instead work to set public health restrictions in line with the COVID-19 risk while governments worked to build up vaccination coverage.
"If we are successful in containing the outbreak, we then need to turn our minds to what the settings will be in the intervening period between now and getting our vaccination rates and the national vaccination rates up to that 80 per cent figure," he said.
Mr Barr said it would be impossible to eliminate the risk entirely.
"Certainly not dealing with Delta. So all we can do is reduce the risk as much as possible. That's why we have the lockdowns settings that we have, and why at this point we don't want to increase risk, we want to reduce it," he said.
Residents in parts of NSW which surround the ACT have been granted standing exemptions to access essential services within the territory.
The ACT government said 13 per cent of its healthcare workforce lives outside the ACT, including almost 500 nurses and 230 health professional offices and medical offices.
Canberra Health Services serves a catchment of 200,000 people from surrounding NSW, and more than 5000 emergency or elective surgeries were performed on NSW residents in the ACT in 2019-20.
Roughly 9 per cent of the territory's education workforce reside outside the ACT, along with 5000 students.
