ACT Health has quietly removed a line defining someone who had kissed a COVID-19 patient as a casual contact from its website.
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Close contacts were required to isolate for seven days regardless of their PCR result, but casual contacts were free after returning a negative test.
ACT guidelines for COVID-19 patients stated casual contacts included people they had shared meals, a private vehicle ride, or "worked closely" with.
But until Tuesday afternoon, that definition also included those who had been more intimate; people who had kissed a COVID-19 patient on the lips, but had spent less than four hours in a confined space with them, could be considered casual contacts.
"Casual contacts are people you have had direct close contact with, for example, hugging or kissing," the guidelines read.
References to kissing were removed from the site after enquiries from The Canberra Times.
Authorities had the ability to change a person's definition after an investigation by contact tracers.
But with contact tracers lagging days behind due to escalating case numbers, Canberrans have increasingly been asked to define whether they were a close or casual contact themselves.
The ACT government has urged Canberrans to use common sense as they assessed their situation, but the vagueness of the rules had raised the potential for confusion.
Many intimate partners would have spent four hours in a confined space regardless, leading to a close contact definition.
But those who visited their partner - whether serious or casual - for less than four hours were not obliged to list them as close contacts, even if they had been intimate.
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The rules also posed potential issues for sex workers in the ACT, who usually spent less than four hours with clients.
In September 2020, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was forced to publicly define "intimate partners", who were given special privileges during the state's lockdown.
"Platonic relationships between two people ... [are] very different to intimate partners, who by virtue of the fact that intimate partners, their contact is of a different nature," he said.
"I can't quite believe I'm having to explain that, but I am. But I'm stopping there."
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