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Perth a ghost town, businesses let staff go as CBD braces for WA COVID-19 wavePART
In the Perth CBD, businesses are battening down to prepare for what they anticipate will be a coronavirus storm, after watching what happened to Melbourne and Sydney over the summer.
So much so, you could be forgiven for thinking Perth was already in the middle of an emergency if you looked around the CBD on a weekday.
Many of the office towers, malls and footpaths that are usually bustling with office workers are unusually quiet.
Google mobility data showed there were 41 per cent fewer people at the city's public transport hubs and a 36 per cent drop in visitors to retail and recreation venues between January and February, compared to two years ago.
The City of Perth said its parking data revealed a fall of almost 20 per cent in the number of cars using its car parks or street parking bays at the start of this month.
It's a similarly sparse scene in the shops and hospitality venues whose survival depends on office workers opening their wallets and whose owners have already had to sack staff this year.
