FRIDAY UPDATE: NSW hits grim new COVID milestone
Thursday: New South Wales has reported a dip in the number of new daily COVID cases - but the premier says the shift “comes with a warning”.
There were 65 new local cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday from more than 58,000 tests.
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However, 28 of those were infectious in the community.
“Based on the fact that we had 28 people infectious in the community in the last 24 hours, I am predicting that we will have higher case numbers tomorrow,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian foreshadowed.
She added, however, that lockdown measures were working as desired because cases hadn’t risen exponentially.
“It tells us that the settings we have in place are having an impact so my strongest message to everybody is: keep doing what you are doing.
“Keep sticking to the rules because we are seeing the impact of that, but the next challenge for us is to see a drop in the numbers, in the numbers of people infectious in the community.
“We are seeing a level of stabilisation, but we need to see those numbers drop.”
South western Sydney continues to be at the centre of the outbreak, with 46 of the new cases diagnosed there.
Forty were linked to a known cluster or outbreak while 25 are being investigated.
Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said 73 cases were being treated in hospital, including 19 in intensive care.
Five of those require ventilation.
It comes after 97 cases were reported on Wednesday morning, 28 of which were active in the community throughout their infectious periods.
The stubbornly high number of cases who were infectious in the community prompted a two-week extension of the lockdown on Greater Sydney.