- Six people across Sydney are confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 locally after an outbreak in several regions across the city
- NSW Health officials have confirmed three cases this morning, all of which are located across Sydney’s Northern Beaches
- Another three people tested positive yesterday, with one of the infected persons a driver for international flight crews
- One of today’s confirmed cases is a woman who works within an aged care centre, prompting the facility to close
- As a result of the outbreak, leaders from both WA and Queensland have stated they are considering closing their borders to NSW if the cluster grows further
NSW’s latest COVID-19 cluster has grown to six cases as border closures across the country are considered in response to the outbreak.
Health officials confirmed a further three cases this morning, with an additional three people identified as having the virus yesterday.
Among the infected persons is a male bus driver who worked transporting international flight crews, as well as a female aged care worker.
The woman’s place of employment, Pittwater Palms Retirement Village, has now been closed to visitors following her positive test result.
NSW Chief Medical Officer Kerry Chant said this worker, in particular, wasn’t displaying symptoms before she was tested.
“That person did not have any symptoms. That person was tested because of our advice around coming forward for testing if you have been at any sites,” she said.
“Remember, for those sites, we say even if you had symptoms or not, get tested. The reason for that is that if you’re in that presymptomatic period, we know you can be infectious for 24-48 hours before symptoms develop,” she added.
The Chief Medical Officer also stated she was confident these latest outbreaks were novel and not as a result of COVID-19 being widely present in the community.
“The only other piece of information that gives me some assurance that it’s a recent introduction is the fact that the sewage surveillance was negative on December 10,” she explained.
As a result of this cluster though, leaders from both WA and Queensland have stated they are considering closing their borders to NSW.
WA Premier Mark McGowan stated his government “will not hesitate” to put border restrictions back in place if necessary.
“If we need to, we’ll put up a hard border with NSW. If we need to do that we won’t hesitate to do that,” he said.
“If the medical advice says that’s what we need to do to protect West Australians, then we will do it immediately,” he added.
Queensland’s Acting Premier, Stephen Miles, also said the state would close its border with NSW if the cluster continued to grow.
“We hope they will get on top of this very quickly, but this is early days, this is new information and over the next 24 hours we will be monitoring it very very closely,” he said.
Widespread testing sites have been set up across Sydney, especially in the Northern Beaches where a number of the cases originated.