An 83-year-old man, whose COVID-19 infection was linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster, has died.
He is the first person to die from the virus since an 80-year-old woman died on May 21 and is the 52nd COVID-19 fatality in NSW.
There have been 57 cases connected to the hotel in Casula in Sydney’s south-west. The man is the first death linked to the cluster.
NSW Health said the man died early on Saturday morning and extended condolences to his family.
The woman who died in May was the 50th death. Following that, however, an earlier death of an 85-year-old man in April was reclassified as COVID-19-related in late June, bringing the total to 51.
"Every death is a tragedy and these are real people not statistics," the deputy chief medical officer Michael Kidd said about rising death toll numbers in Australia.
The Crossroads Hotel was ordered to close in early July, after two people who attended the venue on July 3 became confirmed cases.
It has since reopened.
App linked to identification of new cases
NSW Health reported 17 new cases in the 24 hours to 8:00pm on Friday.
Two cases attended the Apollo restaurant, bringing the Potts Point cluster to 24.
Two cases are linked to the Mounties Club in Mount Pritchard, bringing the total there to five.
NSW Health has again revised its alert for the Mounties Club.
It said data from the COVIDSafe app led to the identification of another 544 contacts linked to the club — resulting in the two new confirmed cases.
The new alert is for anyone who attended the venue on July 20 from 12:01am to 2:30am and July 21 from 12:15pm to 5:30pm and 8:00pm to 12:30am the following day.
All patrons during that time are being told to isolate for 14 days and get tested regardless of symptoms.
The other cases include a NSW resident who returned from Victoria, three travellers in hotel quarantine and seven contacts of known cases.
Two cases are under investigation and another is locally acquired with no known source, NSW Health said.
NSW has now recorded 3,567 confirmed cases.
There are 107 COVID-19 cases being treated by NSW Health.
Nine people are in intensive care and four are being ventilated as of 8:00pm on Friday night.
NSW Health said the remainder of cases are in non-acute, out-of-hospital care.
