‘The Greater Sydney Area including the Blue Mountains along with the Central Coast will be removed effective immediately’: Acting Chief Minister

THE NT government has revoked most of its New South Wales COVID-19 hot spot declarations a day before Christmas

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THE NT government has revoked Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Central Coast areas as COVID-19 hot spots a day before Christmas.

Acting Chief Minister Nicole Manison said Chief Health Officer Hugh Heggie, following a meeting of the Security and Emergency Management Committee of the cabinet, and consultation with the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, was satisfied most of the New South Wales hot spot declarations could be removed.

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“He (Dr Heggie) is satisfied that we can revoke the large majority of the local government areas that are currently declared hot spots by the Northern Territory,” she said.

“A number of suburbs that are already directly located around the Avalon outbreak will remain as hotspot areas. What I can say is that the Greater Sydney Area including the Blue Mountains along with the Central Coast will be removed effective immediately.”

Ms Manison said people from these areas currently in mandatory quarantine in the Territory would be released.

“For those who are at the Howard Springs facility from those revoked hotspot areas, they will be able to leave soon,” she said.

“But please know that if anything changes we will not hesitate to act quickly if we have to in the coming days. We will not hesitate to put in, and keep our hotspot status in a place where we feel we need to. The Territory has been the safest place in the country and that has been for good reason.”

Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and the Illawarra region were declared COVID-19 hot spots on December 20. Illawarra was revoked as a hot spot on Wednesday.

The COVID-19 outbreak began earlier this month in the Northern Beaches area of NSW.

Dr Heggie said the NSW government’s response to the outbreak was exemplary.

“There’s a lot of confidence that Territorian should have in what New South Wales has done in terms of their approach,” he said.

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“Massive numbers of testing increasing daily and now beyond 40,000 tests in a single day and increasing.

“Where this cluster began is the main area of concern. There’s a couple of other cases that in certain, very specific locations that we’ll be monitoring — myself and my chief health officer colleagues and the Commonwealth chief medical officer. We will be meeting every day including Christmas Day and Boxing Day to discuss the situation and we will provide you with updates about what is occurring.”

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