Covid NSW: Thousands urged to get tested as Sydney cluster grows

A mask mandate for seven Sydney council areas is set to continue beyond Thursday as thousands of people are being urged to undergo testing for Covid-19.

Two new cases of Covid-19 have been detected in Sydney overnight, along with two cases that were announced late Sunday.

The two new cases will be announced in Tuesday’s official numbers.

Five new overseas-acquired cases were recorded in the same period, bringing the total number of cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 5,460.

More than 25,000 Covid tests were conducted on Sunday. Bondi’s drive-through Covid-19 testing clinic had long queues on Monday morning. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

It comes as 25,252 tests were conducted on Sunday, compared with the previous day’s total of 24,468.

People in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and the Wollongong area are being asked to especially be vigilant for the onset of symptoms as the number of cases linked to the Bondi cluster grows to 11.

In a statement released Monday morning, NSW Health said even if you have not been to an exposure site: “everyone is strongly urged to avoid gatherings and minimise their movements, such as attending cinemas or trips to ski fields.”

The advice said: “If you can work from home please do so.”

Of the two cases that were announced on Sunday – and included in today’s numbers — one was a woman in her 50s from Sydney’s south who is a close contact of a previous case.

The other is a man in his 50s from the Sutherland Shire, who is also a close contact of a previously reported case.

Masked commuters boarding a bus at Bondi Beach on Monday. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Of the two cases notified overnight — one is a woman in her 50s from Sydney’s northern suburbs and the other is a man in his 30s from the eastern suburbs. Both are close contacts of previously reported cases and have been in isolation.

It comes as Premier Gladys Berejiklian said a mask mandate for seven Sydney council areas would continue beyond Thursday.

Ms Berejiklian said the government doesn’t want “further restrictions imposed more broadly”.

She launched a desperate plea for more people to get tested for Covid, labelling the next few days as “critical” to curbing the spread of the virus.

“We will never, ever earn our citizens more than we need to at this stage … The next few days are critical, if anyone has been to those venues or has symptoms, please come forward and get tested,” Ms Berejiklian told 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Monday.

“Those high rates of testing give us that extra layer of confidence that we’re capturing all the cases that might be circulating in the community.”

She also said the government would do whatever it takes to ensure that all frontline workers are vaccinated after it was revealed patient zero in the eastern suburbs cluster – a transport worker – was not vaccinated because he was a contractor.

“If there’s more we need to do, of course we will.”

Health authorities are racing to track down anyone who may have been fleetingly exposed to the highly infectious Delta variant.

It’s the virus strain that wreaked havoc in India and slowed the UK’s reopening plans, and now fears about its increased transmissibility have prompted authorities to ask anyone who attended the Westfield shopping centre at Bondi Junction – including the carpark – on June 12 or 13 to get a Covid-19 test immediately.

The broad advice is a major departure from Covid-19 clusters early in the pandemic, where isolation orders were narrowed down to a window of sometimes only a few hours at a specific restaurant or venue.

The Bondi Covid-19 cluster has grown to nine people, including two who visited the Westfield, which has left health officials combing through CCTV to try and catch any incidental interactions where the virus may have spread.

The Delta strain is believed to be about 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha, or UK, variant, and it also appears more transmissible in young people, who have increasingly reported symptoms overseas, raising concern’s Australia’s largely unpopulated cohort under 50 have been left vulnerable.

A lack of CCTV showing exactly when the infectious patients entered the Bondi Junction Westfield and no QR codes at the entrance of the shopping centre has further hampered tracing efforts.

Covid testing at Bondi. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

In response to the Bondi outbreak, masks are now required in all public indoor venues – except when eating or drinking – for everyone in the Randwick, Bayside, Botany Bay, Inner West, City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra local government areas.

The mandatory mask order for public transport in Greater Sydney and the Blue Mountains has also been extended to Wollongong and Shellharbour.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant said she hoped to see between 30,000 and 40,000 Covid-19 tests completed on Sunday.

“The quicker we can diagnose cases, the quicker we can get ahead of the transmission of this virus,” she said.

South Australia and Queensland have shut their borders to residents in the Waverley local government area, while those states and Western Australia have also imposed a two-week quarantine requirement on anyone who attended a Covid-19 exposure venue in Sydney.