Sydney’s lockdown extended for a week: All the rules explained

NSW’s tough lockdown rules will be in place for another week – but there is a change. Here’s all the details on what people can do.

NSW’s tough lockdown rules will be in place for another week – with one important exception.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Wednesday the stay-at-home rules that were to have ended this weekend would be extended until July 16.

But for regional students, life will return to some semblance of normalcy a few days sooner than for those in Sydney.

Students in rural communities will get to return to in-person classes on July 13 while greater Sydney schoolchildren will be learning from home until the following week.

The rest of the lockdown rules will remain in place, meaning people living in greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong can only leave home for four reasons until one minute before midnight, Friday July 16:

• 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.

School students in the locked down area will have online classes from Tuesday through Friday, but children who “need to” be physically present in school will be allowed to, Ms Berejiklian said.

NSW’s tough lockdown rules will be in place for another week – with one important exception. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

For those in the rest of the state, the following rules apply:

• 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.

Ms Berejiklian said her government would release a detailed plan for what life in the state will look like before the lockdown ends.

That plan will be released later in the week.

Tougher restrictions could be in the cards for three Sydney LGAs. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Adam Yip

The Premier also said tougher restrictions could be put in place in certain areas of Sydney where officials were particularly concerned about the spread of the virus.

Ms Berejiklian said she’d like to “foreshadow” that residents of the Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool local government areas could be subject to even more restrictive rules.

“Health will consider that advice, but a next step could be limiting even further movement through the health orders,” she said.

“At the moment, obviously, we have broad rules as to why people are allowed to leave the house and allowed to exercise, but if we need to, NSW Health may provide advice on further restriction of movement in those communities.”

The Premier cautioned that decision had not yet been made.

Chief health officer Kerry Chant said that an “escalating risk” in those areas had put her on high alert.

“We know that at the moment it does appear to be predominantly across social groups or connected households, but some of those connections are loose,” she said.

“What we need to do is work on establishing the degree of those connections and then do a ring of testing around those connected individuals to make sure that there's been no further escape into the broader community transmission.”