Elated Sydneysiders were emerging from almost four months of “blood, sweat and no beers” early Monday as a protracted coronavirus lockdown was lifted in Australia’s largest city.
Sydney’s quite five million residents are subjected to a 106-day lockdown, designed to limit the march of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
With new infections now falling — New South Wales state recorded 477 cases on Sunday — and quite 70 percent of over-16s double vaccinated, Sydney was dusting off the cobwebs.
A handful of venues — including some bars and machine rooms — planned to open at 12:01 am time to vaccinated customers.
“Be the primary to own a chilly schooner, and be the primary to catch up with friends,” said owners of Easts within the city’s famed Bondi neighbourhood.
Hairdressers are among those businesses throwing open their doors later within the day, although many are booked out for weeks to return by shaggy-haired customers.
Since June, shops, schools, salons and offices are closed for non-essential workers and there are unprecedented restrictions on personal freedom.
There were bans on everything from travelling quite five kilometres from home, visiting family, playing squash, browsing in supermarkets to attending funerals.
“Very few countries have taken as stringent or extreme an approach to managing Covid as Australia,” Tim Soutphommasane, a tutorial and former Australian race discrimination commissioner, told AFP.
There will still be limits on mass gatherings and international borders and schools won’t fully reopen for some weeks yet.
But otherwise lifestyle will look more like normal.
‘You’ve Earned It’
For most of the pandemic, Australia successfully suppressed infections through border closures, lockdowns and aggressive testing and tracing.
But the Delta variant put paid to any dream of “Covid-zero”, a minimum of within the largest cities of Melbourne and Sydney which are now pivoting to “living with Covid”.
“It’s an enormous day for our state,” said New South Wales’ recently appointed conservative premier Dominic Perrottet.
After “100 days of blood, sweat and no beers,” he said, “you’ve earned it.”
But despite the celebratory mood, there are lingering concerns about what reopening will bring.
Perrottet encouraged patrons to treat staff with kindness, with fears that bans on the unvaccinated may lead to protests and confrontation.
There are fears that reopening will inevitably bring a rash of recent infections.
The Australian Medical Association in the week pilloried Perrottet when he gave the impression to shift the main focus off from health and onto the economic recovery.
“The AMA supports gradual opening from the economy and also the loosening of restrictions, but it’s critical to watch the impact of every tread on transmission and case numbers,” the doctors’ body said.
Otherwise New South Wales should see hospitals become completely overwhelmed despite high vaccination rates.”
