Gatherings restricted, masks indoors as man’s wife tests positive

Household gatherings will be restricted to 20 visitors and masks compulsory in indoor areas across Greater Sydney, as health authorities work to trace two new local COVID-19 infections.

NSW reported two new coronavirus cases on Thursday, after the wife of a man from Sydney’s eastern suburbs who tested positive on Wednesday morning was also found to have the virus.

Cars queuing at the St Vincent’s Hospital Bondi Beach Drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The man, aged in his 50s, had not recently returned from overseas, did not work in quarantine and had no contacts with the hospital system, prompting urgent genomic testing to determine any genetic links to cases in the quarantine system or in other states.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced new restrictions for Sydney, Wollongong, the Central Coast and Blue Mountains enforceable from 5pm Thursday until 12.01am on Monday, in light of the community transmission, which brought an end to a month without local cases.

Household gatherings will be limited to 20 visitors, including children, and masks will be compulsory on public transport and in public indoor areas. Singing, dancing, and drinking while standing in indoor venues will not be allowed (with a recommendation for wedding dance floors to be restricted to 20 people), and visitors at aged care facilities will be restricted to two.

“We believe this is a proportionate response to the risk ahead of us,” the Premier said, thanking the couple who have tested positive for using QR codes in their movements across Sydney.

New restrictions for Greater Sydney

The following measures will be in effect from 5pm Thursday, 6 May 2021, until 12.01am Monday, 10 May for Sydney, Wollongong, Central Coast and Blue Mountains.

• Visitors to households will be limited to 20 guests – including children
• Masks will be compulsory on public transport and in all public indoor venues, such as retail, theatres, hospitals, aged care facilities and for front-of-house hospitality staff (except in a hospitality venue when eating or drinking)
• Drinking while standing up at indoor venues will not be allowed         
• Singing by audiences at indoor shows or by congregants at indoor places of worship will not be allowed
• Dancing will not be allowed at indoor hospitality venues or nightclubs. However, dancing is allowed at weddings with a strong recommendation that no more than 20 people should be on the dancefloor at any one time
• Visitors to aged care facilities will be limited to two people

Genomic sequencing has linked the man’s infection to a returned overseas traveller who was quarantined at the PARKROYAL hotel at Darling Harbour until they tested positive and were moved to Special Health Accommodation on April 28.

“We can’t find any direct link between our case [and the traveller], so what we’re concerned about is there is another person that is as yet unidentified that infected our case,” Dr Chant said.

The man is infected with a so-called “double mutant” variant of the virus, B.1.617.2. Unlike the B1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants which have previously been transmitted within Sydney quarantine hotels, it is not categorised as a variant of concern by NSW Health.

The Premier said the restrictions were less than would be imposed in other states.

A COVID-19 drive through testing clinic in Rose Bay on Thursday was busy.Credit: Photo: Louise Kennerley

“Unlike other premiers, we’re not shutting down the city,” she said, encouraging people to still attend Mother’s Day bookings at restaurants on Sunday.

“It’s business as usual for business: the only difference is that your workers should wear a mask.”

Dr Chant said contact tracers were looking to investigate the couple’s movements before they became infectious, to determine where they may have caught the virus.

People who attended the Fratelli Fresh restaurant at Westfield Sydney on Tuesday, April 27, from 1.15pm to 2.15pm or Bondi Trattoria at Bondi Beach on Thursday, April 29, from 12.45pm to 1.30pm should present for testing and self-isolate until NSW Health issues further advice.

The new venues are in addition to locations previously identified by the ministry as having been attended by the couple while potentially infectious. Those locations include a Woolworths and Chemist Warehouse in Double Bay and The Royal Sydney Golf Club in Rose Bay.

The venues alerts have sent hundreds of Sydneysiders into self-isolation, including NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet who will self-isolate at his home until next Friday after he learned he had visited the same CBD cafe as the man on April 30.

Mr Perrottet, who has returned a negative COVID-19 test, began isolating on Wednesday evening. He had earlier been at Parliament House for question time.

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr Perrottet said he would self-isolate for 14 days from last Friday.

“Mr Perrottet is classified as a close contact as he was at District Brasserie in the Chifley complex in the CBD on Friday 30 April between 11am and 12 noon, at the same time as the man in his 50s separately visited the venue,” he said.

The Sydney Swans’ AFL coaching staff and players from the Sydney Roosters NRL club have also been sent for testing after the man attended a Moore Park cafe they frequent following a trip to the SCG’s stadium club gym on Monday morning.

On Wednesday night, NSW Health revealed fragments of the virus had been detected in an inner west sewerage network, which takes in parts of Dulwich Hill, Summer Hill, Lewisham, Marrickville, Ashfield, Haberfield, Petersham, Lilyfield and Leichhardt.

Asked what she would need to see to advise the restrictions can ease on Monday, Dr Chant said high testing numbers would provide assurance chains of transmission had been “extinguished”.

“We sometimes never find a missing link so what we can do is come forward for testing,” she said.

“One of the really challenging issues with COVID is that 75 per cent of people don’t actually transmit and 25 per cent of people do. So there is an uncertainty about the small number that will effectively transmit and lead to those super spreading events.”

There were 11,579 tests recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday.

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