Six new coronavirus cases have been recorded in Sydney outside of hotel quarantine, the highest daily total since New Year’s Day.
The cases were all close contacts of an infected person in Western Sydney. People in the suburbs of Bankstown, Lidcombe, Auburn, Berala and Wentworthville are now being urged to get tested.
“My plea applies to everyone across the state but particularly in those local government areas as we’re trying to mop up any last chains of transmission,” NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said at the daily press conference.
Health authorities are still trying to work out whether the cases are linked to the former Avalon cluster or the former Berala cluster.
It is still mandatory to wear face masks indoors such as in shopping centres for the time being.
“We just ask people to be respectful, and have I said this on many occasions, the New South Wales Government won‘t impose a restriction a day longer than we need to but our ability to ease restrictions does rely on the science and the health advice and we need to make sure we do it at the right time,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
The new case is proof that, despite a couple of days without any recorded community transmission, Sydney isn’t in the clear just yet.
Berejiklian added: “It’s really important for all of us not to be complacent. Just because you have a couple of days of zero or one, doesn’t mean you have completely quashed the outbreak.”
The news comes as federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announced that there are no more hotspots in the whole of Australia.
However he also stressed the same thing as Berejiklian, adding that “we’re not out of the woods because the world isn’t out of the woods.”
“And our challenges remain always, while there is a disease that is abroad in the rest of the world, but Australians are doing incredibly well.”
That’s why tennis stars arriving for the Australian open are spending 14 days in hotel quarantine, despite their complaints.
