Over 1,000 revellers ascended on a bush doof in Byron Bay over the weekend at a property at Wilson’s Creek, smashing the 20-person state limit on private gatherings.
As it stands, a maximum of 20 people are allowed to attend a household, so this particular party was way out of line, leaving authorities “dumfounded”.
As ABC reports, Head of the Northern NSW Local Health District, Wayne Jones, expressed “an amazing level of concern that people believe that they can congregate to 1,000 people and disregard physical distancing and put at risk not only themselves, but the entire community of the North Coast.”
While NSW continues to report little to no cases of community transmission of coronavirus, authorities are seriously concerned that the doof could have acted as a super spreading event if even one person was infected.
To conduct contact tracing if any positive cases come from the bush doof would take “a huge amount of resources,” said Jones.
It was just one of a series of events that flaunted social distancing measures in Northern NSW in recent weeks, with 200 people attending a Byron Bay house party over the weekend as well.
“Events like this just create an opportunity for spread far greater than what we’re even seeing in Victoria,” said Jones. “The Victorian situation was a handful of people who have travelled around.
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“It only takes a handful of very foolish individuals to do something that puts that entire opportunity at risk.”
Tweed/Byron Police Detective Chief Inspector Matt Kehoe said organisers that breach such health orders could face hefty fines, however there were no fines issued at either of the two events at the weekend.
“Our regime is to educate to warn them, and if the behaviour continues we will consider fining people. At least on these occasions those people, once they were spoken to, saw what the issues were and those parties were closed down.”
Official gigs are starting to be held again in most states, however recent the spike in Victorian coronavirus cases recently saw the Drive-In concert series canned.
