Scenes at Sydney shopping centres over Boxing Day and early this week were more subdued than normal as NSW COVID-19 infections soared above 6000, casting doubt over the retail lobby’s forecast that Australian shoppers would shell out more than $4 billion to snap up bargains.

The rise in cases before Christmas prompted NSW to reintroduce indoor mandatory mask wearing and upped cautiousness among bricks and mortar shoppers as the state braced for a daily record-smashing surge of the highly contagious omicron strain of COVID-19.