the feast of the Christmas scandal that infuriated Australians

“To the idiots who attended the Bronte Beach party. Fuck you! They’re going to ruin the entire Sydney metro area.” The furious post on Twitter adds to a long chain of insults hundreds of so called British backpackers who on Christmas day they beautifully celebrated, in the middle of the pandemic, on a beach in Australia. Now the government is trying to expel them.

The scandalous party without social distancing, lots of beer and chin straps absent This has sparked outrage not only because of the transmission effect of the event, but also because it comes as Sidney struggles to contain a coronavirus outbreak, after months of non-registration of cases. .

As the BBC reported on Tuesday, Australia says it could kick backpackers who disobeyed Covid rules.

Videos from the party shared on social media showed hordes of young revelers singing and dancing on Bronte Beach in violation of the regulations. Many are believed to be British. Another version says they are Irish.

The event sparked anger and officials called him out “absolutely horrible”.

Sydney is battling a new outbreak after months without local cases. The reappearance of the virus a week before Christmas led to a rapid reintroduction of restrictions in the city, including a crackdown on festive gatherings and the closure of the worst-affected region, the North Beaches.

The epidemic has already grown to 129 cases.

Australian Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said on Tuesday he was “shocked” by the scenes at Bronte Beach. Issued a warning to other visitors.

“If someone threatens public safety or health, their visa can be canceled and revoked,” he said.

However, he did not specify how or if authorities would locate the revelers, none of whom has been fined or sanctioned otherwise according to NSW State Police.

The unforgettable party

On Christmas Day, hundreds of backpackerless backpackers were seen drinking, dancing and singing in the park beside Bronte Beach, next to famous Bondi Beach in eastern Sydney.

Christmas vacations among backpackers in the tourist hotspot have been commonplace in other years.

Witnesses told the BBC they believed the majority were from the UK or “not from Australia”.

“You could hear a lot of typical English accents, and several people were wearing white English football shirts,” said Peter Hannam, a local journalist who walked past the crowd with his family.

Covid in Australia

Health officials are currently fighting a covid-19 outbreak in Sydney, which has racked up around 130 cases since it erupted in mid-month and has forced contain some 250,000 inhabitants from the Playas del Norte district.

The country accumulates more than 28340 cases of covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 909 deaths, most of which occurred during the outbreak between June and November in Melbourne and which were linked to failures at quarantine centers for overseas travelers .

New strain

The country has already registered the first case of the most contagious new variant of covid-19, which was discovered last week in South Africa, in a person who remains in a quarantine center after returning home from abroad.

“This is the first positive case of the South African variant in Australia,” Yvette D’Ath, Australian state health officer of Queensland, said in a statement.

This is a woman who arrived in Brisbane from South Africa on December 22 and transferred from the quarantine center where she was staying to a hospital in Queensland, the health authorities therefore consider that the case does not represent a risk of contagion. local.

This case of the “501.V2” variant represents at least five cases detected in quarantine centers in Australia following infections of the new variant “B117” detected in UK, which is also very contagious.

Redaction, Clarín

ap