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Two Gold Coast beaches reopened at midday today after being closed earlier this month due to coronavirus concerns.
Key points:
- After being closed for less than two weeks, the Gold Coast mayor has announced Surfers Paradise and Coolangatta beaches reopen today
- Queensland's Premier announced "zero new cases" of the virus overnight and thanked Queenslanders for adhering to social distancing rules
- NSW has also lifted its ban on Coogee, Maroubra, and Clovelly after the popular beaches were closed for a month
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said Surfers Paradise and Coolangatta beaches will again be open to the public.
However, Cr Tate said The Spit and its surrounding carparks will remain closed until further notice.
"I still want to discourage out-of-towners from coming to our beaches," he said.
The beaches have been off-limits since April 7 after authorities said some beach-goers had been seen flouting social-distancing rules despite repeated warnings.
However Cr Tate said he had recently been receiving feedback that locals were now following the rules.
"Gold Coasters are out there doing the right thing and practising social distancing," he said.
"Lifeguards have been telling me it's been happening all week."
Earlier today, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced Queensland had detected "zero new cases" of the virus overnight and thanked Queenslanders for adhering to social distancing rules.
"If we can keep this up over the coming weeks I'm sure that that's going to mean we'll be able to make some changes and ease some of those restrictions on the population," she said.
"It's been 81 days since we've had that record."
But the state's Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has urged caution, saying significantly reducing social restrictions too soon could result in a spike of new cases.
Queensland's total number of COVID-19 cases remains at 1019, with 52 active cases on the Gold Coast.
Gold Coast City Council's announcement follows a Sydney council's decision to re-open three of its beaches from today.
Randwick Council has lifted its ban on Coogee, Maroubra, and Clovelly after the popular beaches were closed for a month.
Restrictions remain in place for sunbaking, sitting on the sand or rocks, taking children to play, and gatherings for reasons other than exercise.
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Topics: health, diseases-and-disorders, covid-19, lifestyle-and-leisure, travel-health-and-safety, travel-and-tourism, coolangatta-4225, surfers-paradise-4217, the-spit-4217