The NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has confirmed the lockdown of Greater Sydney including the Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Shellharbour will remain in place for at least two more weeks.
With the ongoing number of infectious cases in the community the health advice to the Government has been to continue the existing restrictions until 11:59pm on Friday, 30 July.
The NSW Premier said: “To 8pm last night NSW recorded 97 cases of community transmission, unfortunately 24 of those were infectious in the community. The 24 number is what we need to get down to as close to zero as possible, before we can end the lockdown.
“As I promised yesterday, the NSW Government, based on health advice will provide information on the extension of the lockdown and it always hurts to says this but we need to extend the lockdown at least a further two weeks, from Friday 16 July to Friday 30 July.
“However we will assess the situation at the end of those two weeks and provide information beyond that. But I just wanted to provide certainty on behalf of the Government to the community and say the lockdown will be extended for at least another two weeks with the current settings.
“So the current settings in terms of what people can’t do won’t change for at least two weeks. Of course if health advice changes and we need to do anything further we will.”
She added: “Of course we want to see this lockdown in a timely way, but no matter how long we do need we will have support for businesses and for individuals.”
The Premier was referring there to the extended support announced yesterday with more funding available to businesses and workers through the COVID-19 Disaster Payment fund.
Asked whether the data was showing how likely it was the lockdown would actually end in two weeks, the Premier said it was dependent on people doing the right thing.
She told this morning’s press conference: “A lot of the data, which is predictive, relies on human behaviour, it relies on all of us doing the right thing. So I’d love to be able to predict what proportion of our population is going to stick to the rules. We know the settings we have in place are the right settings, what we don’t know is what proportion of the population will choose to follow those settings.”
The Premier added: “I want to thank everybody for the work we have been doing, we are all in this together. No matter where we live or our circumstances, the virus could come to us. We don’t know how people are moving around, we don’t know exactly what contact people have had, that’s why it’s important for all of us to stay at home unless we absolutely have to leave the house and for all of us to follow the health advice.”
Written by Andy Young