Peter Gutwein,Premier
The health and safety of Tasmanians remains our top priority and we are continuing to monitor the situation in other states very closely, and responding in line with public health advice.
Tasmania now has widespread travel restrictions in place with areas or premises in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and New Zealand.
The Director of Public Health has also advised that the Alice Springs area has also been declared high risk from 3pm today following the announcement of a 72-hour lockdown in that area after a man who visited the town's airport last Friday tested positive for coronavirus.
People should check www.coronavirus.tas.gov.au for a full list of the travel restrictions and to check what it means for them.
While we continue to take a sensible and responsible risk-based approach to managing our borders in line with public health advice, we need to ensure we maintain strong internal processes given the number of high risk areas across Australia.
That's why next week, we will make our Check in Tas App mandatory for retailers, supermarkets, shopping centres and Big Box outlets, expanding this from other settings where it is already mandatory.
Many of these settings already do this proactively as a matter of practice and I thank them for that. Business Tasmania will directly communicate with those businesses outlining this requirement, which will act as another important defense should a case emerge in Tasmania.
We will also continue our health screening at sea and airports, and we will be bringing back a Tasmania Police presence at our ports for flights coming from higher risk areas.
Of course, our most important weapon in the fight against COVID-19 remains our vaccination program, which is continuing to proceed well.
Around 37 per cent of eligible Tasmanians have now received at least a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and we now have 11.6 per cent, or 50,642, Tasmanians who are now fully vaccinated.
Tasmanians working in the aged care sector will also now be required to have a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of their employment from 21 September, and I encourage them to please take the opportunity to get the vaccine now.
Our message to Tasmanians remains to keep on top of COVID-19 and continue to do the right thing, to keep our community and loved ones safe.
