Sydney cluster grows as the state prepares for further restrictions to be announced and more exposure sites are announced across the harbour city
- New South Wales has recorded two new cases of coronavirus on Saturday
- Woman in her 40s living in Bondi Junction has tested positive for the virus
- Illawarra man announced Friday night also included in Saturday’s report
- Cases believed to have been present in Westfield at same time as infected man
New South Wales has recorded two new coronavirus cases as Greater Sydney prepares for more restrictions to be announced in the wake of the growing cluster.
A woman aged in her 40s who lives in the Bondi Junction area has tested positive for the virus, who regularly walks through the Westfield shopping centre where an infected man visited on June 12 and 13.
‘The issue that has become apparent in the course of the last few days as that this particular delta virus is a near and present danger,’ Health Minister Brad Hazzard said in a press conference on Saturday morning.
‘It is a virus that is a very capable of transmitting even when we have very fleeting proximity between the individual who is infectious and any of us who might be passing by.
‘My very strong message to the community is if you have been in or around the Westfield shopping centre, you have to understand that it is not just Myer or David Jones, it is the concern we have is that even if you happen to be passing the person who was infectious, for example, on an escalator, walking along a passageway, going through the airspace with a person has breathed out, we could see you becoming positive.’
New South Wales has recorded two new coronavirus cases as Greater Sydney prepares for more restrictions to be announced in the wake of the growing cluster
An Illawarra man also tested positive who was at the same cafe at the time of the infected man – his result was discovered Friday.
‘We don’t know as yet what day is the likely transmission as she walks through there on most days or many days. It could well be the 12th or 13th [of June] and the other transmission occurred,’ Hazzard said.
‘We are asking people to be vigilant checking the NSW Health website,’ Dr Jeremy McAnulty added.
The Health Minister says the state has attempted to vaccinate all frontline workers but said Scott Morrison’s Federal Government need to take responsibility for its bungled roll-out.
‘We stepped up and are helping a number of other areas that were Federal Government responsibility,’ Hazzard said.
‘But it is a shared burden that some of the limitations of AstraZeneca are imposing a on all governments and I think it does make it more challenging to get the vaccine out.’
The news comes as NSW Health reveal they’ve found fragments of the virus in sewer readings in the Camellia North catchment – putting more than 100,000 residents on high-alert.
The sewer is from suburbs including Parramatta, Granville and Sydney Olympic Park.