Victoria will close its border to Greater Sydney and the NSW Central Coast from midnight tonight, Daniel Andrews has announced.
As of tomorrow, those who live in or have visited those areas after December 11 will not be allowed to enter the state.
“[With] no sense of anything other than the seriousness of this, these are not easy decisions to make and it will mean significant inconvenience for many people, I must announce on the best public health advice that from 11:59pm tonight we will declare all of greater Sydney and the Central Coast a red zone,” said Daniel Andrews.
As reported by ABC News, people who do travel to Victoria from those areas will have to complete two weeks of compulsory hotel quarantine.
Meanwhile, Victorian residents who are currently in Greater Sydney or the Central Coast have until 11.59 pm tomorrow to return home without completing hotel quarantine.
According to ABC News, those who arrive in Victoria from those areas before the deadline can instead self-isolate at home for two weeks.
“That is a special arrangement for those from Victoria coming back to Victoria,” Andrews said.
“If you are not from Victoria and you arrive after midnight tonight, then you will go into mandatory hotel quarantine… the door will close for home quarantine for Victorians on midnight Monday night.”
“These are proportionate measures because what we see today in Sydney is not what the situation will be like a week from now,” he said.
The changes to border restrictions within Victoria come off the back of an outbreak of coronavirus cases that stem from the Northern Beaches in Sydney.
As of today, Sydney has recorded 30 new COVID-19 cases that are all linked to the Northern Beaches cluster.
