If you’re a fan of music festivals and concerts in Australia, then you may need to wait until next year before you can go to one.
This is because such types of events may be among the last types of public gatherings to be allowed even as Australia slowly eases the coronavirus lockdown.
It’s widely expected that after the May 11 cabinet meeting that social distancing restrictions may be relaxed.
South Australia and Western Australia already loosened indoor restrictions, from two persons to a limit of 10 persons on April 24.
But professor Brendan Murphy, Australia’s top doctor, that while family and friends may finally be able to gather again soon, big events like music festivals and concerts are simply “out of the question” while there’s no cure or vaccine. Given that the earliest estimates for a vaccine are at least a year away, Australia’s summer festival season is in peril.
“We certainly would not be contemplating large-scale gatherings,” he said during one senate select committee about how to handle post-lockdown life, the ABC reported.
“It’s hard for me to envisage reopening of nightclubs and big music festivals in the foreseeable future.
“Unless you’re absolutely, completely confident about your borders, your testing, your surveillance, you can’t relax a measure of distancing.”
These social distancing measures will affect how businesses and services that traditionally cater to large groups of people will operate such as pubs, public transport, local sporting events, and cinemas.
Pub owners are discussing what rules will be put in place to minimize social contact such as bans on communal items like pub buzzers, plastic laminated menus, and water jugs.
One leading tourist board also said that hotel buffets will be out of the question and that guests will need to make do with room service in the immediate aftermath of lockdown restrictions being lifted.
“I think there will be a lot more in-room dining. People won’t be as keen to eat in the restaurant,” Tourism Accommodation Australia CEO Michael Johnson said.
These considerations are being mulled ahead of the May 11 review of coronavirus restrictions even as the federal government, health experts, and state leaders are working on restarting the economy.
The Australian Hotels Association said a “new world order” has to be expected while a vaccine hasn’t been developed yet.
“They [pub owners] are thinking about anything that people touch – water jars at the end of the bar, those laminated menus, the buzzer,” the association’s NSW chief executive officer John Whelan said.
“Live music is a real difficult one. Possibly seated. A lot of hotels are giving real consideration to everything. They all accept social distancing is here to stay for a while.”
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