NSW brings back dancefloors & festivals, ditches density limits

NSW has fallen into line with its southern neighbour, Victoria, with the state’s Premier Dominic Perrottet revealing the state will relax more of its COVID-19 restrictions.

From tomorrow (Friday), working from home orders will be removed. Instead, the decision will be left to individual employers’ discretion.

Density limits will also be removed in hospitality settings, and singing and dancing will be permitted once more at venues.

QR code check-ins will only be required for nightclubs as well as music festivals with more than 1,000 people.

This is slightly different from Victoria, where QR codes will remain at hospitality and entertainment venues, which have been dubbed part of the “vaccinated economy”.

The rules will be even further relaxed in NSW on Friday next week (February 25).

On that day, many mask mandates will be removed.

From then, masks will only be required on public transport, on planes, in airports, hospitals, prisons, and disability and aged care facilities.

If a music festival is indoors and has more than 1,000 people, masks will also be required.

The 20,000-person limit on music festivals, however, will be lifted, and singing and dancing will be permitted.

In line with Victoria’s announcement, NSW’s hotel quarantine requirements for unvaccinated international visitors will also drop from 14 days to seven.

Echoing the sentiments of his Victorian counterpart Dan Andrews, Perrottet pointed to hospitalisation numbers and said the signs were positive.

“There are very pleasing signs now in hospitals at the moment right across our state,” he said. “And so as a result. We are lifting a range of restrictions.”

He warned that ‘from time to time’, there will be increases in case numbers, but acknowledged ‘this is the new reality’.

NSW recorded 9,995 new Covid-19 cases in the 24-hour reporting period to 4pm yesterday (Wednesday).

There are currently 1,447 people in hospital across the state with COVID-19, 92 of whom are in ICU.

Almost 95% of those aged 16 and over have had two vaccine doses, and 49.7% have had a third.