‘Stay the course’: Premier reveals the only way Sydney’s lockdown will end

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has revealed the only way Sydney can end its extended lockdown – and it’s going to be an uphill battle.

“Every single person” will need to do the right thing until the end of next week before Sydney’s lockdown can end, Gladys Berejiklian has said.

38 new Covid-19 infections were recorded in NSW on Thursday as the state continues to grapple with its growing outbreak of the highly-contagious Delta strain.

The state’s two-week lockdown was extended by another week on Wednesday and the NSW Premier on Thursday revealed what it would take to bring the lockdown to an end.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says every Sydneysider needs to do their part to help end the extended lockdown.

Ms Berejiklian told reporters “every single person” would need to stay the course and follow the health guidelines to the letter until the end of the three-week period.

She said that included not visiting people’s homes, only socialising with people in the same household and staying at home as much as possible instead of moving around.

“I want to say in the most, strongest possible terms, please, please avoid contact with

households with other households, please avoid visiting family and friends because you are not allowed to,” she said.

“When we talk about providing care or compassion, we are talking about one person visiting someone who might be isolated, dropping off essential services or goods.

“We are not talking about visiting extended family members, we’re not talking visiting friends.

“Data over the last few days shows this is how the virus is spreading. The saddest message out of all of that is that people with the virus are passing it on to those they love the most.”

Strong warnings were also issued from chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant around visiting retail venues.

“If you are leaving your home, ask yourself if you really need to leave your home,” she said.
“If you are going shopping, think about what you absolutely need, do the list, get in and out.

“This is not the time for browsing. This is not the time for what I might need. We are asking the community to only shop for those essential goods.

“No browsing.”

Ms Berejiklian said she wanted Sydney’s current lockdown to be “one and only lockdown between now and when the majority of our population is vaccinated” – which will mean 10 million vaccines need to be administered across the state.

“That only represents about 62 per cent of the population,” she said.

“We will work with the national cabinet in relation to that, but we need to be real.

“NSW wants to open up, NSW wants to engage with the rest of the world, NSW wants to go back to normal life: but that depends on really getting a substantial proportion of our population vaccinated.”

The Bondi cluster now has a total of 279 cases linked to it but a further 29 cases have not been linked.

87 other cases are also linked to those 29 mystery infections.