'People need to change': The coronavirus rules Australia may keep forever
Yahoo News Australia's Life After Lockdown series investigates what life will be like after coronavirus restrictions.
Australia’s Chief Medical Officer has announced that some coronavirus measures will need to be practised permanently, even when the country emerges on the other side of the pandemic.
Professor Brendan Murphy said on Monday that while numbers of COVID-19 cases were slowly dropping, it was nowhere near time to cease social distancing or practicing vigilant hand hygiene.
He insisted those practices were to forever remain a part of how Australians behaved.
“Even if we release restrictions in the future, people need to change the way they interact permanently,” he told reporters.
He said this was inclusive of “keeping distance from each other” and hand hygiene. He said it might be some time before Australians are encouraged to shake hands again, but he doesn’t expect that custom will disappear permanently.
Prof Murphy reminded the public that “even though we may have very low numbers of cases, we want everyone to practise social distancing”.
This came as Western Australia moved to ease restrictions on Monday, allowing gatherings of people up to 10 people and recreational activities where social distancing can be practiced.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszcuk announced the state will begin easing its restrictions from midnight Friday, while parks and reserves across the Northern Territory will reopen from this weekend.
Victoria’s restrictions will remain in place until at least May 11. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has remained firm on no restrictions being lifted in the state.
Over a million Australians install COVIDsafe app on day one
Prof Murphy said the public’s uptaking of the government’s contact tracking phone app COVIDsafe had “been really great” despite early concerns about its security capacity.
“I am really excited over a million Australians downloaded it just in the first evening. That is an amazing and really gratifying outcome. I am so proud of my fellow citizens,” he said.
He expressed his profound gratitude to the Australian public and their awareness for the app’s role in helping authorities fast-tracking contact tracing.
Prof Murphy reassured Australians the app posed no privacy risk and was “highly secure” and “very safe”.
“The more Australians who take this up, the more secure we are about our public health response and the more secure National Cabinet will be about thinking about taking those gentle cautious steps that we want to take,” he said.
“We must keep our community safe in this app is about doing that.”
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