Overview
As COVID-19 cases related to Sydney's northern beaches cluster continue to increase, the NSW Government has asked the city's residents to avoid leaving the house for non-essential reasons.
In the daily coronavirus update on Saturday, December 19, Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the reintroduction of stay-at-home public health orders for the northern beaches local government area — which will come into effect at 5pm tonight, run through until midnight on Wednesday, and require residents of the region to remain in their houses except for the same four permitted reasons to leave that were in effect during March's lockdowns. But, for Sydneysiders who live elsewhere in the city, she also issued a request.
While no official orders have been made for the rest of Sydney, Premier Berejiklian urged everyone in general to "abandon non-essential activity" over the same period. "We are asking you not to undertake any non-essential travel, or non0essential activity. If you are planning a night out tonight, we ask you to consider changing those plans on staying at home," she said. "We want people to stay at home tonight and the next few nights so that we can ensure the virus does not spread."
The Premier expanded upon the reasons for the request, explaining that the state is trying to both stop the cluster growing and spreading elsewhere, and to also stop the need for additional lockdowns — in other places, or for longer periods of time. "We do not want the virus to spread outside of the northern beaches. We do not want perhaps unidentified strands of the virus outside of Sydney, outside of the northern beaches, to start getting to an extent which concerns us," the Premier said. "So can I say to everybody in other parts of Sydney outside the northern beaches, please limit your activity... And if there are any fragments of the virus outside of the northern beaches, we also want to make sure that we give all of Sydney the best chance we have two having a good Christmas."
At the same time, Premier Berejiklian did note that it's impossible to rule out further restrictions — and that the government "will be considering today, after consulting obviously the relevant people, whether this time tomorrow we do revert back to some restrictions in Greater Sydney". She continued: "I just want to put everybody on notice that that is a possibility, and that will depend on the help advice sent to us during the course of the day".
The request comes as 23 new COVID-19 cases were identified in the past 24 hours, with 21 directly linked to the current cluster. Before the northern beaches cases emerged, NSW had gone almost a month without any locally acquired cases. Yesterday, however, Premier Berejiklian confirmed that all of Greater Sydney was on "high alert".
Over the coming days, all Sydneysiders are are asked to frequently check NSW Health's long list of locations and venues that positive coronavirus cases have visited over the past week — and, if you've been to anywhere listed on the specific dates and times, get tested immediately and self-isolate for 14 days after your visit.
In terms of symptoms, Sydneysiders should be looking out for coughs, fever, sore or scratchy throat, shortness of breath, or loss of smell or taste — and getting tested at a clinic if you have any.
For more information about the status of COVID-19 in NSW, head to the NSW Health website.