Last updated: 8 October 2021

From Monday October 11, the NSW Government has provided advice that guidelines around the NSW Health orders have changed and now the community has the ability to engage in activities albeit with restrictions. The NSW Government has not mandated a blanket approach with regards to vaccination guidelines, so we are providing a framework for industry to work towards.

To align our code with this approach, the following protocols have been developed to ensure the appropriate support is provided and also protection for people who are attending our race meetings.

GRNSW has engaged the Company Gardian to supply RAT services at the entry point of racing venues to participants who are not currently double vaccinated. The service will only be available to participants who directly have a greyhound/s engaged at the race meeting. This service is not available for the general public and also not available for other participants who just want to attend the race meeting. If the general public or other participants are to attend, they must supply confirmation of their double vaccinated status on entry.

Participants who are engaged at race meetings will receive a text message with the previous advice and will also include a link to the Guardian registration information for those who require a RAT test, so that when they arrive at the race track they will be pre-registered and this will make the process more stream-lined. If the pre-registration is not done, those participants will need to register when they arrive at the track. Those impacted participants will also be asked to arrive earlier for kennelling to facilitate the RAT testing process. Once participants are registered with Gardian, their details will be on file making the testing process easier.

Due to supply and demand, in the initial roll out of the testing there will be some areas which will not have the 3 minute test and it will be the 12-15 minute test. The Gardian team will be at a race meeting approximately 3 hours before the first race to capture testing and will stay on-site for a minimum of 4 hours.

If there is a positive result from one of the tests, the Gardian team have a process in place to address this. The process is supported by the appropriate health professionals from Gardian.

As part of the protocols, all people who attend a racing venue must still complete the QR code on entry. All clubs will have in place a resource to check the vaccination status of everyone entering the venue.

The NSW Government continues to provide advice around the capacity of venues and the requirements of operations and all venues will abide by this advice.