Sydney lockdown: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian widens tough Covid-19 restrictions to greater Sydney

Sydney’s lockdown has been widened as the city’s outbreak continues to increase. This is how the new changes will affect you.

Sydney’s seven-day snap lockdown has been widened beyond the four local government areas announced on Friday.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian revealed the tough new measures in her second Covid-19 press conference on Saturday, hours after the state posted 12 new infections.

From 6pm on Saturday everybody living in greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong can only leave home for four reasons until midnight on Friday, July 9:

• For essential work, or education, where you cannot work or study from home.
• Exercise outdoors in groups of 10 or fewer.
• Medical care or compassionate needs (people can leave home to have a Covid-19 vaccination unless you have been identified as a close contact)
• Shopping for essential goods and services.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announces a city wide lockdown for Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Ms Berejiklian also clarified a raft of new measures will be enforced during the lockdown period:

• Community sport will not be permitted.
• Weddings will not be permitted from 11.59pm, Sunday 27 June.
• Funerals will be limited to one person per four square metres with a cap of 100 people
• Masks must be worn in all indoor settings.

NSW recorded 12 new cases on Saturday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone

The following CovidSafe measures apply throughout the rest of the state:

• No more than five visitors in your home, including children.
• All hospitality has to be seated – one person per four square metres
• Only a 50 per cent capacity for outdoor events
• Drinking while standing at indoor venues not allowed
• Dancing not allowed at indoor hospitality venues
• Singing by audiences and choirs at indoor venues or by congregants at indoor places of worship not allowed.
• Dancing not allowed at nightclubs, but allowed at weddings - no more than 20 people.
• Dance and gym classes limited to 20 people per class - masks must be worn.
• Mask wearing in all indoor settings
• Restrictions in relation to funerals and weddings.

NSW recorded 29 locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday night, 17 of which were announced on Friday, for a total of 12 new cases.

The council areas of Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick and City of Sydney were first locked down on Friday.

But on Saturday afternoon Ms Berejiklian warned the situation had worsened and a city-wide shutdown of Sydney was the “best health advice”.

“When you have a contagious variant like the Delta virus, a three-day doesn‘t work,” she told reporters.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it properly. There’s no point doing a three-day and then having the virus continue to bubble away in the community.”