The ACT’s lockdown has been extended until midnight Friday 17 September.

A detailed report provided to the ACT Government by Chief Health Officer Dr Kerryn Coleman yesterday said the lockdown has been effective to date, reducing the effective reproduction rate to less than one. This means that across the community, each person who is infected with the virus is infecting fewer than one other person.

“This is absolutely essential to continue in order to reduce the outbreak,” Chief Minister Andrew Barr said.

“But, we are yet to see the public health risk reduce to the point that can safely end the lockdown.”

Some minor amendments to restrictions will come into effect from 5pm this Thursday 2 September in line with the ACT lockdown being extended.

Outdoor exercise and recreation time will be doubled to two hours each day.

People who work predominantly outdoors, such as gardeners, landscapers and dog groomers, will be able to return to work under COVID-safe requirements, while funeral and wedding numbers will grow slightly, to 20 and 10 respectively.

A partial reopening of the residential construction sector will commence under stringent COVID-safe requirements from Friday 3 September.

With the ACT lockdown being extended, the decision has been made to not return to face-to-face learning in public schools during Term 3.

Term 4 arrangements will be determined in “due course” and will be communicated to the community during the first week of the school holidays.

The COVID-19 Business Support Grants scheme has been extended to offer a maximum of $20,000 for employing businesses and $7,500 for non-employing eligible businesses.

More than 3,200 local businesses have already submitted an application for the scheme.

Businesses that already have an application do not need to reapply; the new amounts will be applied to eligible businesses with the first payments to be made in the coming days.

COVID-19 disaster payments will continue to remain available.

A brief overview of Public Health Direction amendments that come into effect 5pm Thursday 2 September:

• one household (any size) or up to 5 people can gather outdoors for up to 2 hours for exercise or non-organised recreation.

• outdoor playgrounds, fitness stations and dog parks will reopen. Canberrans are asked to ensure that they maintain physical distancing wherever practicable.
• the number of people able to attend a funeral increased to no more than 20 people (excluding the people necessary to conduct the funeral).
• the number of people able to attend a wedding increased to no more than 10 attendees (excluding the celebrant, but including persons being married and two witnesses).
• other religious ceremonies which are time critical are permitted to go ahead with no more than 10 people (excluding those conducting the service).
• the recommencement of services that operate outdoors and where physical distancing can be maintained, such as outdoor maintenance and gardening and dog grooming services.

Case update

The ACT recorded 13 new cases of COVID-19 overnight, with another person hospitalised with or due to COVID-19 overnight, bringing the total to 13 in hospital with three remaining in intensive care.

Of the 13 new cases, seven are linked to exposure sites or identified close contacts and six are under investigation.

Only four of the cases were in quarantine during their entire infectious period. At least eight were infectious in the community with the remaining case still under investigation.

Dr Coleman said the proportion of cases at least partially infectious in the community has risen “slightly” over the past week.

The total number of cases linked to this outbreak stands at 274 with 32 now recovered, an additional seven from yesterday. There are 242 active cases.

245 of the 274 total cases have been linked.

There are 29 cases detected from unknown sources, including recent cases still under investigation and others detected earlier in the outbreak.

Of those, 23 are from earlier on in the outbreak, with officials unsure whether links will ever be established. Six remain under investigation.

A total of 3,061 tests were conducted yesterday.

ACT Policing conducted nearly 590 traffic stops yesterday, and issued eight directions to leave the ACT and one infringement notcie.

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