Sydney Reopens After More Than 100 Days In Lockdown

Sydney, Australia aimed to lift its strict COVID-19 mandates for only those who have been fully vaccinated. Salons, gyms, bars and restaurants opened up their doors to vaccinated patrons on Monday.

South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet celebrated the news while announcing the state reached its goal of vaccinating 70 percent of residents. However, he warned cases would likely peak up again once people returned back to work.

“As you know, there are rules in place and there’s still restrictions in place. They’re not there for the sake of it,” he explained. “They’re there because we obviously want to make sure that we look after people’s health care, particularly at a time as we’ll no doubt see case numbers increase, we’ll see hospitalizations increase but we’ve invested significant amounts in our health system. We now need to learn to live alongside the virus.”