For several weeks, ACT residents have been advised against travelling to Sydney. Photo: File.
A 24-year-old woman from Paddington, Sydney, who flew into the ACT without a valid COVID-19 exemption, has been arrested in the early hours of the morning, ACT Policing said.
The woman is believed to have arrived on a flight from Sydney at around 8:00 pm last night and it was determined that she did not have a valid exemption to leave the Greater Sydney area.
She was taken to a hotel at the airport and ordered to remain there at her own expense before being escorted onto a return flight this morning.
But just before midnight, hotel staff told ACT Policing that the woman had guests and was preparing to leave the hotel. Police say they followed her in a rideshare vehicle from the hotel before stopping the car on Kings Avenue.
The woman was then arrested and escorted to the ACT watchhouse. She will face the ACT Magistrates Court today, charged with failing to comply with a direction by the Chief Medical Officer.
Sydney residents are currently facing stringent lockdown conditions as the city battles to contain a COVID outbreak of the Delta strain.
Mounted police are patrolling Sydney hotspots in a desperate effort to contain the rapidly spreading virus.
Yesterday, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she could not see how restrictions would ease in the next week without a dramatic reduction in case numbers.
According to NSW Health, Greater Sydney residents are currently not permitted to leave home.
“You must stay home. Only leave your home if you have a reasonable excuse. If you must leave home, stay within your local area. Do not travel outside your local area if you can avoid it,” regulations state.
The ACT has declared Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, the Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Shellharbour regions COVID-affected areas from 11:59 pm, Friday, 9 July.
Non-ACT residents who have been in these regions of NSW are not permitted to travel into the ACT unless they have an approved exemption.
According to ACT Health, exemptions will only be granted in exceptional circumstances, and even if approved, travellers will be required to quarantine at suitable premises or a hotel at their own expense.
Although mask mandates have been lifted in the ACT as of midnight last night, Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith have described the current Sydney outbreak as a major risk for Canberrans.
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