Gladys Berejiklian has said Sydney’s mask mandate will likely be extended beyond Wednesday, as New South Wales recorded two new local cases of Covid-19.
The two new cases were recorded after 8pm on Sunday, meaning they will be recorded in Tuesday’s numbers. Two separate cases were also reported which had already been announced on Sunday.
“Whilst this isn’t a bad outcome, our level of concern is still there,” the NSW premier said.
She said people in Sydney and surrounding areas would likely need to continue wearing masks after Wednesday.
The current rules require masks to be worn indoors in the local government areas of Randwick, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West, City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra.
Face masks are also compulsory on public transport in greater Sydney, as well as the the Wollongong and Shellharbour local government areas.
“Given the situation we are in and given we don’t want to see further restrictions imposed more broadly across our city and our state, in all likelihood, the existing settings we have in place will continue beyond the five days,” Berejiklian said.
Asked if she expected more restrictions would be needed, NSW’s chief health officer, Kerry Chant said authorities were “just watching every new case that comes in” and monitoring for unlinked cases and new exposure venues.
“This is a critical part in the response,” Chant said.
“It is critical that we all do our part in moderating our behaviours taking that extra care, and that applies to individuals but also businesses.”
Berejiklian said this meant refraining from large gatherings unless “absolutely necessary” and to “assume that you or somebody in close proximity to you has the virus”.
“We know from the number of cases that we’ve seen already in this particular cluster that in some instances, the exchanges have been scarily [fleeting],” she said.
“Literally people coming, not even physically touching each other, but literally fleetingly coming into the same air space.”
The new cases reported were a woman in her 50s from Sydney’s south and a man in his 50s from the Sutherland shire who were both close contacts of an existing case.
Also on Monday, Queensland authorities revealed that a new case reported at the weekend had leaked from hotel quarantine.
Authorities said on Sunday a woman had tested positive after completing her 14 days of hotel quarantine. She had visited a Brisbane shopping centre, the CBD and a restaurant.
On Monday, the Queensland chief health officer, Jeannette Young, said there was “no doubt” the woman had contracted the virus from someone else at a hotel quarantine facility at Four Points.
“We’re just working out how that transmission occurred but there is no doubt she has acquired it in the hotel or at some point when she has come in contact with that person,” Young said.
The woman travelled from Portugal to Australia on an Emirates flight in order to work as cabin crew for other airlines.
Young said the woman had the “Alpha” variant, which was not as contagious as the “Delta” variant.
Queensland recorded no new cases on Monday.
In Victoria, one new case was recorded – a resident of a Southbank apartment complex at the centre of an existing outbreak.
The person was already isolating when they tested positive.
The acting premier, James Merlino, said he expected the state government would be able to relax restrictions further this week.
“I do have confidence and an expectation that later in the week we’ll be announcing a whole range of easing of restrictions for regional Victorians and Melburnians,” Merlino said.
“But I don’t want to foreshadow those today. As Prof [Brett] Sutton always says, everything is on the table in terms of assessment, and it will be public health advice in terms of what can be eased further in a Covid-safe way.”
Merlino also hit out at the pace of the vaccine rollout ahead of a national cabinet meeting on Monday.
“When you compare how Australia is going with the rest of the world, we are falling so far behind it’s not funny,” he said on Monday morning.
Merlino said he was worried Victoria would face a shortfall in doses coming from the commonwealth in July and August.
That would be followed by a “mad rush” towards the end of the year, he said.
Speaking after national cabinet, Berejiklian said it was a “relief” to learn vaccines would be distributed to states and territories on the basis of population.
She said if NSW got the vaccines the federal government was now promising, more GPs will also need to join the rollout.
Victoria added the NSW local government areas of Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West and Randwick to its list of orange zones on Sunday evening.
It means people who travel to Victoria from these areas must get a test and isolate until they receive a negative result.
The City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra LGAs were already listed as orange zones.
