Western Sydney has been put on notice as another record number of new COVID-19 community transmission cases were announced today, with 124 new cases in NSW.
Of the new cases recorded to 8pm last night, 48 of these were infectious while out in the community.
Another record number of people were tested in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, with 85,000 tests, bringing the total number of tests in the last two days to 170,000.
Dr Jeremy McAnulty, Director, Health Protection, NSW Health, said he was "particularly concerned" about areas of Sydney including Toongabbie, Seven Hills, Pendle Hill, Mount Druitt and Rooty Hill.
Of the 124 new cases in the state, 12 of these were in the Blacktown local government area (LGA), bringing the total in Blacktown to 43 with 19 of these from an unknown source.
The NSW Health website lists six active cases in the Hawkesbury right now, which has not changed since last week, however there are now two cases in the Blue Mountains.
There were three new cases in Penrith in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 12 in that area, and two of these are still of an unknown origin.
Cases in other local government areas surrounding the Hawkesbury are: Hornsby, 4; The Hills Shire, 14; and Central Coast, 3.
There have now been 1648 cases in this outbreak so far.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said, given the amount of people infectious out in the community in today's numbers, "I'm expecting case numbers to go up even higher."
She said what the record testing had done was to "uncover" more cases, and that the case numbers would continue to go up before they go down.
"It's really important for us to scoop up all the possible cases out there," she said, asking people to continue to come out and get tested.
She said her "fears of spill out" from the Liverpool and Fairfield areas to the Canterbury-Bankstown and Cumberland areas had eventuated.
Workplaces and households continued to be the main two areas of transmission of the disease.
"Please stay at home. Please only leave if you absolutely have to," said Ms Berejiklian.
She said the COVID-19 Delta variant was "spreading like we've never seen before", and it was "cruel" how transmissible it was.
"Assume that anybody you're in contact with has this virus," she said.
She pleaded with the people of NSW to get vaccinated: "The vaccine is our key to freedom."
Sarah Falson
Daily Liberal journalist. I love telling people's stories. Get in touch at sarah.falson@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Daily Liberal journalist. I love telling people's stories. Get in touch at sarah.falson@austcommunitymedia.com.au
