The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the collapse of the hospitality and tourism industry around the world.

The government’s easing of restrictions is greatly needed to jumpstart the industry and get businesses back on track. The lifting of stage 1 restrictions will allow businesses to reconnect with customers and revive a sense of normality. There’s a saying in hospitality that customers will bring more customers. There’s nothing like seeing life in a restaurant premise with a queue outside. 

However, the aftermath of COVID-19 will linger with changes in customer preferences and behaviour. The new normal will see people reducing their travel, limiting their interactions, increasing personal hygiene, reducing group gatherings, choosing to stay in smaller hotels away from crowds.   

Hospitality businesses must innovate by providing a high customer service experience with limited face-to-face contact using tools such as robots, drones, individual dining booths and social media.

Old habits must die. Hospitality businesses and employees must be prepared to work in an environment where face masks, social distancing, increased hygiene and other post pandemic measures are the norm.

To be successful, hospitality businesses must carefully manage restriction protocols and work together as an industry to navigate out of this pandemic.

[On Friday], the Morrison government announced the staged ‘relaxation’ of the COVID19 restrictions under which we have lived for the past months. As a nation, we can be proud of the success we have achieved in suppressing viral transmission. However, this is not the time to be deceived by this apparent success. We have increasing evidence of significant proportions of asymptomatic infections, a wide range in incubation periods and variation in patient symptoms, tracing, tracking and isolating cases becomes more challenging.

With the announced reopening of playgrounds early in the piece – ‘Stage 1’, comes the risk of viral sharing both through direct contact with other families and transmission from playground surfaces. Why I believe this is unadvisable is due to the lower levels of COVID testing among children.

Globally there has been a shortage of test swabs, reagent and lab time. Australia – as has most countries - has had to ration who gets tested, and have predominantly focussed on those who are symptomatic (fever and respiratory symptoms), are deemed high risk epidemiologically speaking (returned travellers, contacts and health care settings) and those severely unwell. This means that more adults than children are being tested. This is not evidence that children are less likely to be infected. Children are simply underrepresented in COVID positive tallies; they can and do get COVID disease; simply do not appear to become as unwell when infected, being less likely to get lower respiratory symptoms/complications (pneumonia and hypoxia) and overall they are less likely to require hospital admission.

However, with most countries relying on symptoms to drive testing, it is likely that the burden of COVID disease in children has been underestimated, and they harbour and transmit COVID more than we think.

Play and exercise is important for children’s development as well as mental and physical wellbeing, but until there has been a period of time in Stage 1 – with many people now heading out into the community, I recommend that playgrounds are avoided. We are also heading into flu season with the spectre of COVID still looming, therefore, vigilance, surveillance and meticulous attention to hygiene are required; in particular if you decide to brave the playground. It is unlikely there will be an active presence of anyone controlling the distance between children, or the numbers up to 10 in a playground at any one time.

With an effective reproduction number close to zero, the gradual dismantling of the restrictions put in place to prevent thousands of deaths is a sensible approach to take. 

The careful phasing of the lifting of restrictions will allow us to act quickly should the number of new cases start increasing.

However, in order for it to work, we must continue to undertake surveillance testing to ensure that community-acquired cases are under control, and the general public should still practice careful handwashing, and not go out if they have any symptoms.

I think the Australian government has adopted the right approach to open gradually, while monitoring the number of cases. We know that these social restrictions have huge financial implications but we need to balance risks versus benefits.

At this stage, the number of cases is very low and the epidemic is under control here. So, at this stage, these are the best options to open gradually and see what happens. If the number of cases starts increasing, we need to close again.

We should ensure adequate testing capacity and contact tracing and isolation mechanisms. It is very important to analyse testing data and assess the magnitude of asymptomatic infections. Asymptomatic infections may drive the next wave of cases in Australia. In that case, we might need to consider using universal face masks to reduce community spread, without using strict social isolation measures. Now it is the responsibility of the public as well to follow the government’s instructions. They need to keep a safe distance, stay home if sick, and seek medical advice and use the COVIDsafe app.

As there is no hope to get an effective vaccine within the next few months, it is not possible to keep Australia and its economy locked down for longer, and I think it is time to start easing these restrictions in several steps. However, we need to have clear infection control habits within the community to avoid large outbreaks from happening, like those in aged care homes and food factories.

Social distancing, and hand and personal hygiene are very important to stay in place.

The relaxing of social restrictions is likely to have some immediate mental health benefits. We rely on social contacts, particularly with our close family and friends, to deal effectively with the anxiety and distress caused by the economic and social disruption that COVID19 has inflicted on all of us.

“If there are also significant economic benefits, this may help to reduce some of the additional harm that has been done to the Australian community.