Australians have been warned to remain COVID-safe as school holidays approach.
Deputy Chief Medical Office Dr Nick Coatsworth said people needed to be aware of how they were feeling before going anywhere.
He reminded people to wash their hands, remain socially distant and avoid leaving the house if unwell.
“Where there is movement, there is potential movement of COVID-19,” Dr Coatsworth said.
“Work out where the nearest COVID testing facility is for your particular holiday destination and if you are sick on the day you have to leave out of your major capital, don’t be the one that takes COVID-19 in regional communities in Australia … The licence to move is not a licence to move unsafely.
“We’re clearly looking at numbers within seven out of eight jurisdictions in Australia that do allow movement within states from urban to regional areas. There would be no point in restricting that sort of movement because the numbers would not favour that as a proportionate response.
“With those numbers being low, the obvious way to keep them low and keep our school holiday as close to how they usually are is to keep as COVID safe as possible and that’s a responsibility for everybody.
“The licence to move is not a licence to move unsafely.”
Term three holidays in NSW will run from September 28 to October 9 while Victorians and Queenslanders began their break on September 19 and will run until October 4.
Dr Coatsworth said just because Australia was entering the summer months, did not mean people could be complacent.
“We’ve all expressed concern in the decrease in testing rates … We can only ask Australians with even the most minimal symptoms to get tested.
“It’s going to be a challenge (to lift testing rates) because we’re moving into the months of the year where there is less respiratory virus.
“We just saw the first and second waves in the northern hemisphere taking place in the summer months so we can’t be complacent.”
There is a total of 26,912 cases of COVID-19 in Australia, which only increased by 16 in the past 24 hours.
On Monday, NSW reported four new cases, Queensland had one new case while Victoria reported 11 new cases.
Dr Coatsworth said the results from Victoria — which had only two deaths — were pleasing and was testament to residents’ immense effort.
“We encourage them to keep up the good work. There is still some way to go … but it is pleasing when we see numbers so close to single digits and the control that implies we’ll be able to keep COVID-19 under control.”
