Fears are growing that Sydney’s COVID-19 restrictions could be extended as the city and its surrounds reach the halfway point of its 14-day lockdown.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Saturday confirmed the state had recorded 35 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Friday - the highest number of daily cases since the first wave of COVID-19 in early 2020.
The new cases take the outbreak tally to 261.
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Of those, 29 are linked to previously confirmed cases and six are under investigation.
Twenty-three of the new cases were in isolation throughout their infectious period, three were in isolation for part of their infectious periods and nine of those were infectious in the community.
The lockdown rules imposed on Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong are set to end on July 9, and Berejiklian says: “the green shoots are there”.
“Whilst as predicted the number of cases are going up, we’re seeing a greater proportion of those cases in isolation which is exactly what we want to see,” she said on Saturday.
When asked when residents could expect to learn whether the lockdown would be extended, Berejiklian said she would “be in a position to tell the community where things are at” sometime next week.
“It’s a bit too soon at the moment. (But) we have seen the tide turn, we have seen those green shoots,” she said.
Thirty-five possible exposure sites were identified by NSW Health on Friday evening after the state recorded 31 infections.
When asked about the chance of lockdown being extended, Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the next few days were crucial but she was “forever an optimist”.
“This is a time when the focus needs to shift from south-eastern to those communities in south-western and Western Sydney ... the next few days will really disclose the pattern,” she said.
“As the premier said, there were some glimmers of hope last night that we would actually see more people in isolation. A number of the links were made and we have solved a couple of puzzles overnight. That all gives me confidence, but it is day by day.”
- with AAP