The southside bar favoured by federal members and their staffers has already felt the blow of mandated masks and lockdowns in other states, owner Frank Condi said.

Discouraging MPs from heading out when parliament sits for two weeks on August 3 would further impact business, already down around 30 to 40 per cent.

"At no stage do I want to have any sort of possibility that anyone in the community could get infected, because I do believe one case would shut us all down immediately," Mr Condi said.

"From another financial and business perspective, without those people traveling to the ACT we're not getting those business people coming through that are creating our incomes."

The prospect of sitting week becoming a COVID-19 super-spreader was raised in a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison on July 16.

The letter from Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly was followed by ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith warning politicians to stay away from the city's pubs and clubs.

"Please don't go out partying in the ACT," Ms Stephen-Smith said during a press conference this week, in which she criticised the PM for failing to wear a mask when in front of the media.

"I probably wouldn't have chosen, if I was the Prime Minister, to have a press conference without a mask on for that length of time," she said.

Canberra Business Chamber chief executive Graham Catt has called for federal assistance to be extended to ACT hospitality and hotel businesses, without the territory having to be named a hotspot.

"There's no doubt at all that our economy and our businesses are being directly impacted by lockdowns, particularly in Sydney but also in Victoria," Mr Catt said.

He said hotels occupancy levels were down to as low as 10 per cent of what they might usually expect.

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Restaurant takings across Canberra were down 15 to 30 per cent on what they would expect for this time of year, he said.

"The other effect which is probably less visible is all the larger events which are being cancelled," Mr Catt said.

Mr Catt likened the situation businesses were now in to how they were affected during the height of the bushfires.

"We didn't have flames in Canberra, there was no buildings burning in Canberra, but we absolutely did have people that were incredibly impacted by the smoke pollution that resulted from those fires," he said.

"Unfortunately, that assistance that was available to those businesses who were directly impacted was denied to the vast majority of Canberra businesses.

"We really don't want to find ourselves in that situation again."

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