Omicron has thrown endless curveballs at businesses, with many left confused by the rapidly changing rules of COVID.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced major changes to COVID rules, getting rid of casual contacts and refining the definition of close contact to only someone in the same household for more than four hours in an enclosed space.
Business owner of Public Bar and Edgar's Inn Frank Condi said these endless rule changes had caused a lot of confusion.
"There doesn't seem to be information coming out as quickly and as clearly. When it comes to testing it hasn't been as good, either. Staff have been out of action for days simply waiting for test results back," Mr Condi said.
"Over this Christmas and New Year period we've had to close Public because of staff and management being in isolation and for Edgar's Inn we've decided to close it for a couple of days purely from a risk-management position.
"This has been a tricky time for everyone, so we just want staff to have a reset and give them a break."
The ACT on Thursday recorded the highest number of cases since the start of the pandemic at 253. Six people were in hospital, with none in intensive care, bringing the active total to 1134.
While the most recent changes to rules will make it easier for staffing, Mr Condi said customers had still been nervous with the increase in case numbers.
"A lot of people are still quite hesitant. We still have a large number coming out which is great but it's still not the same," Mr Condi said.
"This was supposed to be a time to try and claw back some of the losses we've had over the last two years, but it just seems to be an ongoing process that we've had to shift the business and change our expectations.
"It's definitely a lot harder than what everyone thinks it may be. It's really, really hard this time of year."
Caribou Bar owner Leeroy Petersen said the lack of clarity around COVID had been frustrating during the summer period.
"No one know what's going on. It changes so quickly," Mr Peterson said.
"We get the ACT government wanting us to do our COVID-mandated tests and have our policies sitting there in folders but then it changes every day, so we're having to sit there and redo our compliance folders every second day.
"It's kind of difficult to completely understand what's going on but it is what it is. I think we've gone through it before. I just think this time around is going to be harder for a lot more people because it's heading into January."
Mr Petersen said while the ever-changing rules were frustrating, his business attracted a lot of local customers, which was to his advantage during this period.
"The week before Christmas we noticed a lot of big group bookings pull out for staff Christmas parties organised by companies," Mr Peterson said.
"We still had the majority of our local regulars coming in, though, and their groups and families coming in, which has been lovely.
"It's good to see people are stilling wanting to trust their local environments to come support our business and hopefully it continues to stay strong for us."
