The Hunter is on a miracle run.
After 76 days of reporting no new coronavirus cases, the region had its first new patient on July 6 when a Newcastle man tested positive the day after being released from hotel quarantine in Sydney.
The returned traveller passed on the virus to two friends, a couple in their 20s, who tested positive in the week after attending a social gathering with the man.
In the month since then, the Hunter has skated, Steven Bradbury-like, on thin ice through a series of close shaves.
Visitors carrying the virus from Sydney and the nine Hunter people they infected have been to shopping centres, licensed clubs, pubs, sports grounds, schools and court houses in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens and East Maitland while potentially infectious, but none has yet led to an outbreak.
The latest near miss could be a construction worker in his 20s who was at Wallsend Diggers, Hotel Jesmond and Lambton Park Hotel last week. Hunter New England Health has conducted thousands of tests since the man visited Newcastle, but so far none has come up positive.
The same goes for Toronto Court House, which was closed for cleaning early last week after a "member of the court" who dined at the Apollo Restaurant in Potts Point later tested positive.
It is a far cry from Victoria, which recorded another grim record of 725 new cases and 15 deaths, one a man in his 30s, on Wednesday.
NSW reported 12 cases, a number Health Minister Brad Hazzard described as a "very good result". None of the new cases was in the sprawling HNEH district.
The state tested 22,000 people in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Wednesday that anyone travelling into NSW from Victoria would have to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days at their own expense from midnight tomorrow.
Labor Leader Jodi McKay backed the Premier's move but urged her to go further and introduce mandatory wearing of masks on public transport and in places of worship, supermarkets and shopping centres.
Queensland banned incoming travellers from all of NSW and the ACT as the east coast states moved to quarantine themselves from the Victorian domino effect.
Meanwhile, Wallsend Labor MP Sonia Hornery maintained her criticism of contact tracing in her electorate, writing on Facebook on Wednesday morning that more than 100 people had complained to her office that they should have heard from health authorities.
"NSW Health advise they are only contacting people who actually signed into the Hotel Jesmond, Wallsend Diggers & Mezz Bar or the Lambton Park Hotel during the time the COVID positive man was present," she wrote.
"This means if you signed in to the venue 5 minutes before he did, you WONT be contacted, even if you sat directly beside him during dinner or at the bar.
"Not good enough I say. I will be following that up with the Minister."
Ms Hornery said on Tuesday that Newcastle needed "decisive action from the Premier on people travelling here from Sydney", one of whom turned out to be her Labor colleague, Upper House MP John Graham.
Mr Graham travelled to the city on Friday to talk to the media about grant allocations and to local stakeholders about the night-time economy, which is one of his shadow portfolios.
A spokesperson for Ms McKay would not comment about Mr Graham's visit but said state Labor had advised all staff to follow the NSW Health recommendation to avoid non-essential travel.
Flights stopped between Newcastle Airport and Melbourne several days after the Victorian bordered closed.
Virgin, Jetstar and Qantas are still flying to Queensland, but Qantas will stop on Tuesday. The other two carriers are monitoring demand.
An airport spokesperson said travellers could fly into Queensland until 1am Saturday without having to enter quarantine.
