Peter Gutwein,Premier
Effective from 12.01am Tuesday 21 December, masks will be mandatory for all indoor settings except in your place of residence, including on public transport or in taxis or ride sharing where you could come into contact with another person.
Masks are a cheap, easy way of reducing the likelihood of COVID-19 spreading in the community, and as we know, they are already mandatory in higher-risk settings such as events or large sporting events.
Mandating them for indoors in Tasmania will add another important safeguard in our defence against potential COVID-19 spread in the community as we continue to see cases, and as we continue to adjust to living with COVID in our community.
Pleasingly, many Tasmanians are already wearing masks, both indoors and outdoors, and they have been mandated in some other jurisdictions for many months.
Prior to the mandate coming into effect, my strong recommendation is to begin wearing masks in indoor settings except your residence as of today, to help limit any potential spread.
There are now seven active cases in Tasmania, and we continue to ask everyone to check the coronavirus website for exposure sites, and make sure you contact Public Health if you need advice.
I do want to stress once again, that this is not unexpected – we always knew that by reopening our borders, COVID would come, and it has.
What matters is how we deal with it moving forward, and with our vaccination rates high, and with the measures we have implemented, both at our borders and in the community such as mandatory mask wearing, I am confident we are as prepared as we can be.
Of course, the best protection you can have and provide others with is vaccination, and Tasmanians have done a fantastic job right throughout.
As of Saturday 18 December, 96.84 per cent of Tasmanians aged 16 and above have had one dose of the vaccine and 91.56 per cent are fully vaccinated. For people aged 12 and above, 95.73 per cent have had one dose of the vaccine and importantly, 90.22 per cent are fully vaccinated.
The success of our vaccination program has gotten us to where we are today, and meant we were able to open as one of the safest places in the world, which is a credit to everyone.
I do want to urge Tasmanians to keep turning up – If you've had your first dose, make sure to get your second, and let's keep pushing to get up close to 95 per cent of our population fully vaccinated.
And if it's been five months since your second dose, make sure to book in for a booster, and give yourself the extra protection you need to protect yourself, your family and your loved ones.
Our clinics will remain largely open over the Christmas and New Year period, so make sure you jump online to coronavirus.tas.gov.au or call the Public Health Hotline on 1800 671 738 to book.
We will continue to see cases in the coming days and weeks, but our processes are working, and I remind Tasmanians to keep doing the little things to keep yourself and the community safe.
Wash your hands, cover coughs and sneezes, observe social distancing, stay home if you have cold or flu-like systems and get tested – and if you haven't had your first dose, please, make sure you book in as soon as possible
