Cafes, gyms and restaurants in Sydney allowed entry of fully vaccinated individuals on Monday after around four months of COVID lockdown.

Australia now aims to start living with the coronavirus and reopen gradually. Some pubs in the city opened at 12:01 a.m. (1301 GMT) as friends and families gathered for a midnight drink. New South Wales (NSW) state Premier, Dominic Perrottet, called it ‘freedom day.’ Perrottet, however, cautioned that cases would increase after reopening. The two-dose vaccination rate in NSW in individuals aged above 16 years has reached 74%, while in Queensland, whose borders continue to remain closed to Sydney, the rate is 52%.

NSW recorded 496 new locally acquired infections on Monday, as Victoria registered 1,612 new cases, the lowest in five days… (Reuters, October 11, 2021)