Health authorities in NSW have confirmed another death from coronavirus — Australia's seventh — and revealed there are significant COVID-19 concerns for passengers and crew on a cruise ship off Sydney.
NSW Health said an 81-year-old woman became the state's sixth coronavirus fatality on Thursday night.
She had close contact with another confirmed case of COVID-19 at Ryde Hospital.
Australia's other coronavirus death was in Perth.
In the 24 hours to 11am on Friday there were 75 new infections confirmed in NSW, taking the state's total number of cases to 382.
More than 40,000 people have been tested in NSW since the outbreak began.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard also revealed there were major concerns for passengers that disembarked from the Ruby Princess cruise ship in Sydney yesterday.
He said several passengers onboard had tested positive to COVID-19 since it docked.
The ship is now off the coast between Sydney and Wollongong.
One of the passengers is in a serious condition in a Sydney hospital and another passenger travelled to Tasmania and is being cared for by health authorities there.
A Tasmanian woman who was a passenger on the ship also tested positive for COVID-19 and was being treated in Sydney, the state's Public Health Service confirmed, adding there were 54 passengers from the island state on board the ship.
Another person was a crew member on the ship and remains onboard in quarantine.
"The very big concern, is that those people came off the cruise with no knowledge of COVID actually being on their ship," Mr Hazzard said.
"And for that reason, if they think that it's not necessary to do the 14 days, and if they think that it's OK to be wandering around, the clear message from me as New South Wales Health Minister is, no, it's not."
The majority of NSW's confirmed cases have mild symptoms and are in isolation at home, and six are in hospital intensive care units.
The NSW Government yesterday announced it would set up a central operations centre to streamline its response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Around 20 government agencies, including NSW Police, NSW Health, Education and Transport will now be based at the Rural Fire Service headquarters at Lidcombe in Sydney's west.
The State Government has also moved to override local council restrictions on supermarket deliveries, to ensure grocery shelves can be re-stocked around the clock.
It comes as Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday urged people to stop stockpiling groceries.
"Please stop that activity, it's not necessary, it's not needed," she said.
"Please be a good neighbour and be a good citizen. Do not panic buy."
