NSW Health says Clarence is clear of COVID, and clarifies appearance on positive case list

No cause for concern as viral Facebook post showed Clarence Valley in official statistics

Northern NSW Health have confirmed that a positive case for the Clarence Valley listed on NSW Health website is not and has not been in the Clarence Valley.

News of the listed case for the Clarence spread like wildfire across social media, with one community Facebook group having the message shared more than 200 times, with more than 300 comments.

The listing on the NSW Health website showing a positive COVID case for the Clarence Valley. NSW Health has said while the man has a Yamba address, he has been in Sydney the whole time of his infection.

A spokeswoman for NSW Health said the case listed for the Clarence Valley is a person with a Yamba address, but they reside in Greater Sydney and have not been staying in our region.

The case would be removed from the website to alleviate confusion, they said.

Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis also clarified the position by private message to Facebook group admins, who reported his words to help stop the spread of the positive case news.

It came as Northern NSW health listed more than 20 locations of concern all in the Byron Bay, Bangalow and Newrybar area.

Northern NSW Local Health District said there had been no more cases reported in the 24 hours, with the three cases three people currently in Lismore Base Hospital.

The spokeswoman for NNSWLHD said they wanted to thank everyone who has come forward for testing in the past few days, which was an important part of our community response in terms of identifying new cases and tracking where the virus may have spread.

Testing numbers have increased markedly throughout the health district over the past week.

“On Tuesday August, more than 3000 tests were conducted at NSW Health and drive through clinics across the District, with many more conducted at other GP and respiratory clinics in the region,” they said.

“This comes on top of sustained high testing rates over recent weeks, with 9,177 tests conducted among NNSWLHD residents for the week of 1-7 August.”