NSW urges people who feel Covid-19 symptoms after negative test to have another swab

Health officials in NSW have issued a warning for Sydney workers who remain symptomatic even after testing negative for Covid-19.

Health officials in NSW are urging people with Covid symptoms to have a second test even if they’ve returned a negative one.

Chief health officer Kerry Chant said workers who had been to hot spots in the past two weeks should be especially vigilant.

“Even if you have a single test result that is negative, if you get any other symptoms, you need to retest,” Dr Chant told reporters on Tuesday.

“That goes for the community in general. One negative test result does not predict what your result will be later that evening, or in subsequent days.”

She said there was a fear that people who had been to the hot spot areas of Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick and the City of Sydney in the past two weeks may have picked up the virus and unknowingly brought it back to their communities.

A nurse performing a Covid-19 test at the Bondi Beach in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

“Clearly, during that period there was the chance that you may have inadvertently come in contact with someone who is positive, or there may well have been missing links, missing cases in that area,” Dr Chant said.

“You may well have gone back to other suburbs in the greater metropolitan Sydney, or for that matter across the state.”

The four local government areas of Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick and the City of Sydney were singled out as hot spots last week and the government imposed a lockdown on those areas on Friday.

The following day, the lockdown was extended to cover the entire city.

However, essential workers are still allowed to enter the affected areas.

NSW recorded 19 new community cases on Tuesday.