Australia to cancel gatherings of over 500 and non-essential overseas flights

Australia’s federal and state governments have agreed to cancel non-essential gatherings of more than 500 people across the country and non-essential travel overseas. The country’s Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, alongside state and territory chief medical officers, agreed that mass gatherings should be cancelled, a recommendation which was then adopted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Parramatta (NSW). Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that by Monday the advice would be “against organised, non-essential gatherings of persons of 500 people or greater”. The measure, he said, was a “commonsense precaution to ensure we can manage the transmission of this virus in the most effective way possible”. Morrison said the recommendation would not apply to attendance at work, childcare, schools, university lectures, public transport, airports “or things of that nature”. “Only essential travel should be considered if you are going overseas from this point forward,” Morrison added. Although Australia has “low rates” of Covid-19 infection, the Prime Minister said the government had escalated its response due to “growing evidence … [of] greater community transmission of the coronavirus throughout Australia”. Murphy said the advice applied to a “static gathering where people are together for a period of perhaps up to two hours,” rather than aiming to prevent “casual exposure” of people transiting through spaces such as airports, which are of “lower risk”. The ramping up of Australia’s response to the coronavirus threat follows a slew of cancellations of major events, including the F-1 Grand Prix in Melbourne.