WITH about 150 people from the Central Coast rumoured to have travelled to Sydney to attend the "freedom" protests on the weekend, the state member for Swansea has urged people not to engage in "social media vigilantism".
Yasmin Catley said the scenes in Sydney on the weekend were "disappointing" and "let the community down" and it had not moved the state closer to coming out of lockdown.
"This has been a difficult time for the Central Coast community and while I understand the frustration with those who attended the protest, I would urge people not to engage in social media vigilantism," she said.
"To those that attended the protest... I understand your anxiety and frustration - but this is not the way to go about helping your community. This is not moving us closer to coming out of lockdown, it is having the opposite effect.
"To the organisers of the protest, you have shamefully taken advantage of the community's anxiety and frustration to push your divisive politics. You have preyed on the economic and emotional trauma of individuals and families, putting their health at risk for your own gain."
Ms Catley's comments came after NSW recorded 172 new local cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday - the highest daily case numbers since the Sydney Delta outbreak began.
Of the new cases, 60 were infectious while in the community and another 19 people in the community for part of their infectious period.
It is a long way from the "close to zero" target that NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said will allow restrictions to ease across the state. The premier is expected to make an announcement on Wednesday about what the restrictions would look like after July 31.
"There's no doubt that number needs to come down," Ms Berejiklian said. "There is no doubt the NSW Government needs to consider some difficult decisions. We don't want people infectious in the community when we open up.
"We know we have put in the hard yards for five weeks and we don't want to waste all the hard work we've done by opening up too early."
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There were 85,000 people tested in NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm Monday.
The premier said from Wednesday, people over 18 in Sydney would be able to get the AstraZeneca vaccines from pharmacies.
From Friday, state vaccine centres would also begin accepting bookings for people over 18 to have the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the state needed more doses of the Pfizer vaccine supplied to get more jabs in arms as soon as possible.
"The federal government did their best," he said.
"Now we are entirely dependent on the federal government supplies of the vaccine. We know we will not have enough Pfizer in the next few weeks to do what we really could do in the hubs."
NSW Health's Dr Jeremy McAnulty said that of the new cases, 87 were linked to known cases or clusters. There were now 171 patients in NSW hospitals with COVID-19. Of those, 46 were in intensive care, and 19 were ventilated.
