A group of young European partygoers was filmed ignoring all COVID-19 social distancing rules as they crammed together for a barbecue in a Bondi apartment.
The footage taken on Tuesday night shows men and women aged in their 20s crowded in a backyard and adjoining loungeroom as they drink, smoke and laugh.
They appear to be alarmed when they realise they are being filmed by a neighbour as several of them alert the others in Spanish they have been busted.
The man who took the video told Daily Mail Australia: ‘I asked them if they thought this was a joke and that coronavirus is serious.’
‘I brought information about coronavirus to them and they just didn’t care.’
A group of young European partygoers was filmed ignoring all COVID-19 social distancing rules as they crammed together for a barbecue in a Bondi apartment on Tuesday night
The building where the party took place is to the right of this picture. The group was filmed over the wooden fence
Neighbours said residents of the Ocean Street premises and their visitors were mainly Spanish, French and British and some appeared to be on working visas.
Spain has 94,417 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 8,189 fatalities, France has 52,128 cases and 3,523 deaths, while the UK’s equivalent figures are 25,150 and 1,829.
In the Bondi video at least 14 people are sitting and standing around – some drinking Coronas – until one of them spots a camera being used to film over their fence.
‘Hello! You cannot take pictures,’ a woman clutching a beer bottle yells out as she laughs.
Another woman then alerts the rest of the crowd saying in Spanish: ‘Somebody’s taking pictures, look.’
A third woman in the backyard covers her face while someone else in the background says ‘Que pasa?’ (‘What’s happening?’) and several revellers inside the apartment get off a couch.
A man then walks from the loungeroom out into the backyard and puts his hand over the camera’s lens, saying ‘None of us are sick, it’s all fine’.
Partygoers relax in the Ocean Street apartment’s backyard, having a drink and a smoke
The group is ignoring all social distancing rules while one of them mans the barbecue
Residents of the block of units where Tuesday night’s party took place have been repeatedly warned about noise coming from their apartments. However the social distancing rules were only being ignored in the one flat
Real estate advertisements suggest about seven residents are paying $250 a week to live in the three-bedroom fully-furnished apartment.
A New South Wales police spokeswoman said officers were alerted to a ‘social gathering’ at the apartment block about 9.15pm.
‘Police attended and spoke with a man at the premises who told them a group had earlier met in the backyard for drinks,’ the spokeswoman said. ‘The group had since dispersed.
‘Officers reinforced social distancing rules with the man and he was given a warning to comply with the government’s current advise regarding gatherings.’
The neighbour who took the video lived nearby with his partner and wished to remain anonymous.
‘On Friday night they had a big party but last night there was proper music and people walking in and out of the apartment block,’ he said.
‘Other residents were looking from the street and wondering what was going on and I’d had enough of the noise.
‘So I walked behind the red brick building and decided to take a video of them.
‘The funniest part was that the guys were super apologetic and admitted they were throwing a house party for a girlfriend who was leaving the country tomorrow. But the girls went crazy.
Bondi has been a coronavirus hotspot where police have had to force backpackers and others off the sand. Bondi Beach is pictured as it was being closed on March 21
Several of the partygoers realise they are being filmed and alert all the others as one of their number approaches the back fence
A man who has walked out from the loungeroom puts his hand over the camera’s lens, saying ‘None of us are sick, it’s all fine’
‘The noise has been a big issue on the street for a long time. Look I like a party and they’re here for a limited time and just want to have fun… but it’s selfish.’
Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, said he had been living in the building behind the party flat for a week and already noticed raucous behaviour.
‘They are usually really loud in their rooms… there can be four or five of them shouting at each one,’ he said.
‘I remember it being very loud last night for sure, it spilled into the backyard. I know a lot of people in the building think it’s a problem.’
The incident is just the latest in a string of blatant breaches of COVID-19 social distancing rules observed among young people in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Bondi locals getting tested for coronavirus at the suburb’s free pop up clinic have vented their anger at backpackers throwing parties.
Residents lined up at the eight testing centres set up by nurses at St Vincent’s Hospital inside Bondi Pavilion on Wednesday to get tested for COVID-19.
A garbage bins sits outside the party flat in Ocean Street at Bondi (left) and a lane which leads down to where the party was held (right)
One woman who lives with one housemate and wanted to stay anonymous said that backpackers should just return to their own countries.
‘I’ve seem them out and about not caring, plenty of them flouting the rules,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
Paul Dias, the owner of Beach Fit in Bondi, decided to get tested as a precautionary measure.
‘Some people just don’t care,’ he said. ‘Backpackers, it’s not their country but they just want to keep on partying. It’s just unfair.
‘They are still partying at night, on rooftops, and there are like 60 people. They think they might not get it but everyone can get it. Young people are dying from it.’
Ocean swimmer Peter Howard, 81, believed the pop up clinic was a good idea, and while backpackers were good people, ‘they do live like sardines’.
St Vincents’ pop up clinic in Bondi specifically for testing high-risk sections of the Bondi community
Residents lined up at the eight testing centres set up by nurses at St Vincent’s Hospital inside Bondi Pavilion on Wednesday to get tested for COVID-19
Backpackers at Bondi Beach were also seen ignoring the new coronavirus social distancing rules at McDonald’s on Tuesday night.
Three young women were filmed huddled together, even though there were taped x marks on the tiles indicating the need to stand 1.5 metres apart, as they waited for a takeaway order.
Metres away from them, another three women with English accents were also bunched together at the fast food outlet counter.
Sydney’s beachside eastern suburbs are the epicentre of coronavirus with 469 confirmed cases as of this week, New South Wales Health data showed.
Backpackers at Sydney’s Bondi beach have been videoed blatantly ignoring social distancing rules at McDonald’s. The three young women huddled together, even though there were taped x marks on the tiles indicating the need to stand 1.5 metres apart, as they waited for their takeaway order
Police have been out in force in the eastern suburbs, forcing sunbathers off the grass at Rushcutters Bay and doing spot-checks on Kings Cross hostels to find backpackers partying in close proximity to one another.
Waverley Council, which takes in Bondi, has the highest number of cases of any Sydney local government area.
The figure this week surged by a third from 105 to 140 in the last five days.
At least 21 cases came from an unknown source of infection.
There were 2,182 coronavirus cases in NSW on Wednesday, while a 95-year-old woman became the ninth COVID-19 death in the state, bringing the national death toll to 20.
Australia has 4,862 cases of coronavirus and has recorded 21 deaths as of Wednesday
Metres away from them, another three women with English accents are also bunched together at the fast food outlet counter early on Tuesday night
The images in the Bondi apartment and at McDonald’s were taken less than 24 hours after NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard signed the Public Health (COVID-19 Restrictions on Gathering and Movement) Order 2020.
Individuals now face on-the-spot fines of $1,000 and maximum penalties of $11,000 or six months in jail if they are outside unless they are going to work and can’t work remotely by computer, are attending school, are buying medical supplies or are shopping for groceries or food.
It’s legal to exercise at the park but apparently not to linger in a public place.
Australians are only allowed to gather outside in groups of two.
There are exceptions if people live together or are moving.
Adding to the confusion, Mr Hazzard’s Twitter profile features a pre-COVID image of sunbathers bunched closely together at Dee Why, on Sydney’s northern beaches, in his Wakehurst electorate.
The situation is so bad at Bondi the state government and St Vincent’s Hospital are this afternoon setting up a pop-up COVID-19 clinic at the beachside Pavilion (grass area nearby pictured on March 31, 2020)
The Northern Beaches Council area has 109 coronavirus cases, making it second only to Waverley council.
It has an even higher infection rate than City of Sydney council, with a tally of 107 cases.
Woollahra Municipal Council in Sydney’s east had 79 cases, compared with Central Coast Council’s 84 tally north of Sydney.
In Sydney’s west, Blacktown City Council had 67 positive tests for COVID-19, one more than Canterbury-Bankstown’s 66.