GATHERINGS of more than two people have been banned from midnight on Monday night and Tasmanians have been ordered to stay at home for the next four weeks or face arrest and heavy fines.

The new rules were intended to avoid a “full lockdown” due to the coronavirus, Premier Peter Gutwein said.

The only exceptions will be for people going out to buy essential supplies, going to school or work, or to exercise or check on neighbours or elderly relatives or members of the same household.

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“You will need to remain in your primary place of residence and you will be committing an offence if you don’t,” Mr Gutwein said.

“The rules will come into effect from midnight tonight, our police will ensure that they enforce this, you will be able to be arrested, you will be charged and summonsed.

“This order will be placed for four weeks and will be reviewed during that period.

“To be clear, your primary residence means your usual fixed location and you must stay at that fixed location until such time as these challenges that we face are over and this order is revoked.

“We’re putting in place these measures as it is our aim to avoid a devastating full shutdown as we have seen rolled out in other countries.”

Penalties of $16,800 and jail terms of up to six months will apply for breaches of the orders.

“This means aside from your household, if you were to go for a walk, you can do it with one other person. If you go for a bike ride, play golf, run, horse ride, it can only be with one other person after midnight tonight,” Mr Gutwein said.

“Two people, that’s all.

“If you have a household like mine or four people in it, you want to go for a walk down the street , you still can – but nobody else can join you because that will be about the two limit.”

Ten people have already been fined for camping in places that were closed, Mr Gutwein said.

“These are tough measures but they are done with Tasmanians’ health, wellbeing and safety as our top priority,” Mr Gutwein said.

“If we follow the rules, if we stay home, we will save lives.”

Director of Public Health Dr Mark Veitch said health authorities were trying to trace the contacts of two people with coronavirus in the Devonport area for whom the cause of infection was not known.

He said the top priority at present was to delay the establishment of the disease in Tasmania, and to slow its transmission in the community.