How the Victorian travel permit will work for NSW travellers

Victoria’s commander of COVID-19 testing says travellers from Sydney will be stopped and screened at Melbourne’s airports as health authorities work to stem the spread of the NSW COVID-19 cluster.

People who have been on the Northern Beaches region in the past week are banned from Victoria, everyone else from greater Sydney will be asked to get tested and isolate until they get their results.

Jeroen Weimar told Heidi Murphy there are over 40 flights a day from Sydney to Melbourne.

“What we will be doing from tomorrow morning, is every single person getting off a Sydney flight will be interviewed by our authorised officers and staff that are out there.

“We will be checking their permits … the permits will not allow people to travel from the red zone areas.

“Those people that we find coming in from greater Sydney will be referred to one of our testing stations and asked to isolate at their address until they have got their results.”

People travelling to Victoria from NSW will be able to apply for a permit later tonight.

“The permit site will go live later on tonight, our key focus is making sure it is available by midnight tonight, obviously enabling people to travel,” he said.

“We obviously want to make this as simple as possible, but it’s a very real issue.”

He said travellers from greater Sydney need to get tested and isolate until they get a test result, but those who had been in the hot spot areas or “red zones” would not be allowed in.

“We want to make it really clear to people: if you have been to those hot spot locations, you cannot travel to Victoria. Full stop.

“There are people in greater Sydney who are arriving from tomorrow morning, we will ask them to get a test.”

For those in border towns, he said there will be an arrangements in place for an “ongoing permit”.

“[What we are saying is] anybody in NSW, including the border communities, does download the permit to make sure they have validation to travel.”

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Image: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty

‘Don’t come from Sydney’: Victoria to introduce permit system for NSW travellers