Coronavirus Australia live updates: Frantic search for virus 'missing link' in northern beaches

Health authorities are now on the hunt for the common thread between several cases as NSW marks a massive virus testing milestone.   

As health authorities work to get Sydney’s coronavirus outbreak under control a race is now on to find the “missing link” between cases that all attended the same venue at different times.

One of yesterday’s seven new cases is a firefighter whose source of infection is under investigation but went to the Belrose Hotel for an hour and a half on December 11.

An employee at the Belrose Hotel previously positive for coronavirus on December 23, with further testing revealing he could have been infected back on December 10.

However the staff member hadn’t been working the day the firefighter was at the Belrose Hotel.

Another positive case also visited the pub’s bottle shop on December 17, but, the infected staff member also hadn’t been at the Belrose Hotel on that date. 

Other Belrose Hotel employees who had been working the day of the bottle shop visit all returned negative tests results.  

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant and Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Monique Harmer

NSW’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant said health workers were now investigating if there was a link between the cases given they all went to the same venue - although it is not known if any of them caught the virus at the Belrose Hotel. 

"What we're looking at is for the missing link – who else was present at the Belrose?” she told reporters.

"If you have been to the Belrose Hotel and have the most minimal of symptoms, please get a test any time in December and even if you historically had an illness that you think in retrospect might have compatible with COVID please get a test and please isolate until you get that negative test.”

NSW reported seven new coronavirus cases yesterday, with six of them linked to the cluster which now sits at 122, with more than four million tests now carried out in the state since January.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian is expected to announce plans for New Year’s Eve as early as today “or the latest the day after”, acknowledging the stress the uncertainty over restrictions is causing.

Read on for all the latest updates.