Residents of Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, the Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Shellharbour will find out if their lockdown will lift tomorrow.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian flagged in today’s press conference that a decision on the lockdown – currently scheduled to end at 6pm July 9 – will be made in tomorrow’s press conference.
The decision will be announced at 11am and will be based upon a range of variables including the cost of keeping businesses closed and the risks posed by children going back to school.
The original time frame for the lockdown – which also includes the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast, Shellharbour and Wollongong – was to run for two weeks from 6pm Saturday 26 June.
This 14-day period was designed to limit the spread of the virus in highly populated areas, and to give contact tracers more time to link how community cases were transmitted.
There are some concerns about whether the lockdown will end as intended on July 9.
NSW’s Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant has refused to rule out extending it, saying she does not have enough data to make a recommendation on whether restrictions should ease at the end of the week.
“I’m making no comment until I’ve looked at all the data,” Dr Chant said yesterday.
“Every day brings a new set of data and a new set of challenges and what we think in the morning can change in the afternoon.
“I’m really pleased to see that we’ve had some people come forward for testing over the weekend, which has allowed us to link unlinked cases and the more certainty we have that we have tracked down every single case of transmission, that really does provide us with a lot more confidence in advising government.”
There is no general consensus on how many cases NSW needs to register before lockdown will lift, with authorities saying the method of transmission and the mobility of positive cases being more important than the headline number.
Additionally, Ms Berejiklian hinted that there may be some form of ongoing restrictions until the end of October.
“What I can say is that based on the health advice, the New South Wales government is not only thinking about when we come out of lockdown, but what coming out of lockdown looks like,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“In addition to that, what life looks like until the end of October when we have many more vaccines available. There are all the considerations for us at this stage and I will be pleased to update the community tomorrow.”
Ms Berejiklian said the fate of lockdown rests on the number of new cases who were in the community while infectious.
“In the meantime can I urge everybody whilst I’ve got the last say today the please follow the rules. The next few days are critical,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“We want to get out of this lockdown as soon as possible in a timely way. I thank everybody for the efforts to date but please keep at it. The next few days will be critical in our decision making.”
