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Crowds have flocked to Sydney beaches again, raising concerns over safety as Sunday-morning scenes showed a huge volume of people risking social-distancing guidelines.
Key points:
- Some beaches in Sydney's east were only open during 6:00am-9:00am over the weekend for exercise
- The crowds that descended down to the beaches raised concerns over safety
- Randwick City Council said it would reassess access on Monday
Randwick City Council in Sydney's east had brought in restricted access times of 6:00am-9:00am for three of its beaches over Saturday and Sunday, but the large number of people taking advantage over those times has raised concerns over safety.
Scenes at Coogee beach on Sunday mirrored that of yesterday, with crowds flocking to the spot despite rules that people can use the beach for exercise only.
Fencing around the beach funnels people through entry and exit points in an attempt to control numbers, but locals raised concerns it was merely creating bottlenecks.
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NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Sunday afternoon councils were trying to do the right thing to attempt to let people back onto the beaches.
"But we also have to be sensible we know that to keep safe we have to have social distancing," he said.
"I think the councils are having a very tough time as a result of some selfish individuals who think that beaches are their own personal backyard as I heard someone say, well sorry, no they're not, they're actually a place that we all share and we have to share it safely."
Local woman Meredith Ward, a regular swimmer at Coogee, said Sunday was the busiest she had seen the beach since it reopened after being closed on March 28 due to coronavirus restrictions.
"It was definitely the usual swimmers doing their laps but there were people in the shallow water not exercising and too many people hanging around both the beach and the promenade for comfort," she said.
"I'm not worried about infection risk in the ocean as we are well spaced out, but I am concerned by the crowding at the entry and exit points to the beach.
"It wasn't possible to maintain social distancing through the entry, although very easy to do so in the water itself.
"I felt at the entrance points there were a lot of spectators and there were people who were simply walking, taking photographs and hanging around the entrance point to the beach, and it made it quite difficult for those of us who actually wanted to go for a swim to safely enter the beach."
Randwick Council announced on Friday it was closing its beaches at Coogee, Clovelly and Maroubra due to crowding but would allow limited access over the weekend.
It said it will reassess the situation on Monday.
Today's scenes follow NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard's comments yesterday that people needed to be sensible if they wanted more access to public spaces.
'"I have to express a degree of disappointment and agitation about the fact that some people, when the rules are relaxed, when we try and do the right thing by giving people the opportunity to have some outside exercise, [they] are disregarding the very strong message of social distancing," he said.
The beaches in the council areas of Randwick and Waverley, which covers Bondi Beach, were closed last month following scenes of a packed Bondi that caused global outrage.
Waverley Council last week announced plans to allow restricted access to Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama beaches which they named "swim & go" and "surf & go" measures between 7:00am and 5:00pm from Tuesday.
Swimmers and surfers will have access to the water for the sole purpose of exercising.
The Mayor of Waverley, Paula Masselos, said it was "disappointing" that people in the community continue to do the wrong thing.
"We stress that the community needs to take personal responsibility for their own safety during this pandemic," she said.
Randwick Council has been contacted for comment.
New cases drop, but medical practitioner diagnosed
A medical practitioner at Nepean Hospital west of Sydney has tested positive for COVID-19 but had no contact with patients in the 48 hours before developing symptoms, Mr Hazzard confirmed on Sunday.
He said checking goes back at least 48 hours after someone developed symptoms when working with "vulnerable populations".
"That particular medical practitioner had no face-to-face patient work, no clinical work in that preceding 48 hours," he said.
The woman had contact with two other medical practitioners during the relevant 48-hour period and those people are now in 14-day isolation, he said.
The new number of cases to 8:00pm last night was eight, a drop from the previous day's increase of 12.
Of those eight new cases, five relate to people linked to Newmarch House.
Three residents and two staff have been diagnosed with COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases there to 53 with 34 residents and 29 staff.
The total number of deaths linked to the facility is now six, following the passing away of an 82-year-old elderly man on Saturday morning.
The number of confirmed cases in NSW is now at 3,002, with 198,715 people tested.
Thirty-six people in the state have now died from COVID-19.
The Nepean Hospital worker had also worked at the Sydney Adventist Hospital, but also in a non-clinical position.
This latest case, however, has meant that there have been a total of eight staff moved into isolation from Sydney Adventist Hospital.
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Topics: covid-19, diseases-and-disorders, health, infectious-diseases-other, respiratory-diseases, government-and-politics, nsw, sydney-2000
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