The great Aussie pub crawl could be a thing of a past after a warning today from Deputy Chief Health Officer, Nick Coatsworth, who said Australians should not be attending multiple pub venues in the same night.
“To be honest, in this day and age, the actual idea of attending multiple venues on one night, people need to reflect on whether that is the right thing to do,” said Dr Nick Coatsworth.
“We were all 20 once, and there will be people who remain in their 20s after the pandemic when this is all over who can go back to the old eight-pub pub crawl.
“But for the moment, I think we need to kind of pull back a little bit on our socialising and I think just remember that when you visit many places in a night, that could well be, you may be the person spreading the virus or you could put yourself at risk of spreading.”
Dr Coatsworth said other Australian states and territories should also be on alert for a second-wave outbreak similar to that experienced in Victoria.
He said the nine NSW cases of coronavirus whose origin were still unknown were a concern, because “there must by definition be something going on in the communities that the public health authorities aren’t aware of”.
“We as Australians have to have an eye down to Victoria, both in terms of support but also what could happen in our own backyards.”
“So while it’s important for people to feel that their lives are back to the new normal, it’s critically important that we are not going back to the old normal, which means that we have to maintain social distancing, we have to maintain excellent hygiene, we have to get tested whenever we are unwell with any of those symptoms, all those things have to be in place.
Dr Coatsworth gave a national update on Australia’s COVID-19 health crisis, revealing 12 new deaths – all in Victoria – had occurred since yesterday.
There are currently 8,100 active cases in Australia, with 659 people in hospital and 53 in intensive care units. In Victoria, a child under 10 is reportedly in intensive care suffering the effects of the virus.
Earlier today, Victorian authorities announced the death of a man in 30s – the second death in that age bracket in the state in a week.
