Five blokes have been fined a total of $25,000 for having a gathering in southwest Sydney despite admitting to police that they had tested positive for COVID-19 and were actually supposed to be isolating.
The men – aged 23, 25, 26, 31 and 32 – were spotted by police on Monday morning sitting at a table on a footpath on a residential street in Leppington. None of them were wearing face masks, which are mandatory outdoors across NSW.
When police asked them what they were doing (recreational outdoor gatherings are banned right now), the men told officers that they had actually tested positive for COVID-19 somewhere in rural NSW and had been send back to Leppington to isolate starting from last Monday, August 23.
This particularly street in Leppington falls under Liverpool City Council, which is one of the 12 local government areas of concern and thus subject to stricter lockdown restrictions than the rest of Sydney.
The five blokes were promptly fined a massive $5,000 each for breaching public health orders, and were then escorted back to continue their mandatory isolation.
It’s not yet clear how the five men were able to travel to rural NSW under the current stay-at-home order, nor why they thought they could simply not bother to isolate for the full two week period.
At least they were honest about it, hey.
All adult Aussies (yep, even if those of us under 40) are currently able to get vaccinated. Click here to see which clinics are offering it, and talk to a doctor for more info.
The best vaccine is the first one you can get, and that’ll be our ticket out of this mess.
