Gladys Berejiklian says some areas of concern could be freed from tough Covid measures

Residents in some suburbs could be given more freedom after the premier hinted at plans to remove some council areas from the hot spot list.

Some council areas could be removed from the ‘Areas of Concern’ list, meaning residents could get more freedoms as the outbreak shifts to other areas.

The premier hinted some suburbs could be reclassified, meaning they would be removed from the areas of concern and would adhere to the same measures as the rest of Greater Sydney.

Twelve LGAs are on the hot spot list including Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Canterbury-Bankstown, Campbelltown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Strathfield, and some suburbs of Penrith.

These areas are home to about 2.5 million residents, and have additional rules in place like a curfew and a one hour limit on exercise.

Only essential workers can leave their LGA to work and must get frequent Covid tests.

But that could change for some areas.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said some areas could be reclassified. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

She said health officials would consider both case numbers and vaccination rates in those areas before deciding whether to lift restrictions.

“There are a couple of local government areas we are considering taking out of areas of concern,” Ms Berejiklian said on Tuesday.

“These are opportunities we have to look at and it depends on health advice but I want to foreshadow there are a couple of LGAs experiencing a drop in numbers (but) I don’t want to speculate.”

Burwood, Bayside and Georges River were the likely options.

Figures from NSW Health reveal Burwood has only recorded six cases over the last week, including one on Monday.

Strathfield recorded just five infections on Monday, while Georges River had 17 cases.

NSW recorded 1290 Covid-19 infections and four deaths on Monday.

The virus is spreading rapidly across Sydney, but particularly in the city’s southwest and west.

The news came as Sydneysiders entered their tenth week of a citywide lockdown which has since extended across the state.

Case numbers have dwindled in Burwood. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Adam Yip

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said Monday’s deaths included a man in his 50s from Dubbo, two men in their 70s – one from western Sydney and the other from the inner-west – and a woman in her 60s from western Sydney.

The man in his 50s, who is understood to be Australia’s first Indigenous person to die from Covid-19, had underlying health conditions.

“Every time we read out these (details), there is a family that is grieving,” Dr Chant said.

Dr Chant said the virus was continuing to spread rapidly in the west and southwest of Sydney while parts of regional NSW remain hot spot areas.

Of the new cases, 51 were in the western NSW local health district, including 33 cases in Dubbo. There were nine cases in the state’s far west.

But there was some good news with 6.8 million people having received a dose of the vaccine in NSW.