Large extended families in Greater Sydney, Wollongong and the Central Coast will not be able to gather for Christmas lunch or dinner, after the NSW Government decided to mostly maintain a temporary public health order which bans large gatherings in homes over the holidays.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Wednesday morning that there had again been eight new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, prompting her to make "modest changes" to the restrictions.
However, there are still no more than 10 adult visitors allowed to gather in homes.
Ms Berejiklian said the restrictions brought in earlier this week for "Greater Sydney" - which includes the Wollongong LGA and the Central Coast - would stay in place, but for a small tweak which would allow an unlimited number of children under 12 to join a maximum of 10 adults to visit homes between December 24-26.
The 10 adult cap applies to visitors, and not the residents of the homes, so for example: a household which has five adults living there may have another 10 adult visitors - and unlimited primary school age children - over across the day between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day.
"Children under 12 have proven not to be carriers of the disease," Ms Berejiklian said.
"What we're putting forward is very modest and this is assessed against what the best advice is telling us."
From December 27, the restriction will revert to allow only 10 people of any age to visit households in the restricted area.
There will be no changes to restrictions for regional NSW, where up to 50 visitors are allowed in private homes.
Ms Berejiklian said seven of the new daily cases were directly linked to the Avalon cluster and the eighth was already mentioned yesterday as being linked to a work in hotel quarantine.
42,000 people came forward for testing in the 24 hour period.
The decision does not change most NSW residents' ability to travel within their home state - as all residents except those from the Northern Beaches were still able to move freely around under the temporary restrictions.
However, the state has changed the boundary of the restricted area in the Northern Beaches, splitting the area into two zones at Narrabeen Bridge on Thursday.
Residents living on the northern part of the region (north of the bridge and east of the Bahai temple at Mona Vale Road) will essentially remain in lockdown.
From Thursday to Saturday they will be able to have five people from that are visit their home.
During the same period, people in the southern part will be allowed to have up to 10 guests to their home, who can come from outside of the region.
All Northern Beaches residents will not be allowed to leave the area.
