Residents of Sydney and surrounds should learn on Wednesday whether their lockdown will be extended beyond Friday, NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says.
NSW recorded 18 new COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday, with seven in the community for at least some of their infectious period.
“The lockdown is having its desired effect to date, no doubt about that,” Ms Berejiklian said on Tuesday. “But it’s still concerning that a number of cases are remaining infectious in the community for that period of time.”
The premier said she would be talking with health experts throughout the day and evening, and hopes to tell the community on Wednesday “what next week looks like”.
The stay-at-home orders for more than five million people in Greater Sydney, Wollongong, Shellharbour, the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains regions are due to end at midnight on July 9.
Ms Berejiklian said the length of the lockdown will be informed by the fact that the NSW government wants this to be the state’s last lockdown.
“We intend for this lockdown to be the only lockdown we go through,” she said.
She warned that due to the virulence of the Delta strain, restrictions may persist after the lockdown ends until a good majority of the population is vaccinated.
“I anticipate that when we do come out of the lockdown it won’t be what life looked like necessarily before we went into lockdown,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Sixteen of the new cases were linked to a known case or cluster, including nine household contacts of previous cases. Two cases are still under investigation.
A third worker at the SummitCare aged care facility at Baulkham Hills in Sydney’s northwest is among Tuesday’s new cases, sending more staffers at the home into isolation.
The staffer worked while infectious but had received their first dose of AstraZeneca and did not expose any more residents.
Five SummitCare residents have tested positive, including one who was not vaccinated. All five have been sent to Westmead Hospital for observation.
Another of the new cases is linked with the Meriton Suites Waterloo cluster.
Eight to ten people attended a party there on June 26, the first night of lockdown. Seven attendees have now tested positive, as have five household contacts.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant on Tuesday thanked the revellers for cooperating with contact tracers.
Meanwhile, 13 NRL St George players have been fined for attending a party at the home of Paul Vaughan on Saturday night.
At least 500 nurses are in isolation after potentially being exposed to COVID-19 while working at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association head Brett Holmes said on Tuesday.
Five wards have been identified as areas of exposure. Patients are being diverted to other hospitals, only urgent and emergency surgeries are going ahead and other nurses are being asked to work extra hours, he added.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said this had put the hospital system under “enormous pressure” but with a total staff of 140,000, RNS was large enough to cope.
“That’s pressure but it’s not compromising patient safety,” he said.
At Fairfield Hospital 120 health staff have been told to isolate, leaving others to work 12-hour shifts over the weekend.
Elsewhere, NSW Health has issued fresh alerts for seven new venues, including a pharmacy at Belfield in Sydney’s southwest and the Adventist Hospital at Wahroonga in Sydney’s north.
The two-week lockdown in NSW is expected to cost the economy around $750 million a week or more, according to St George Bank economists.
AAP
