NT still set to remove Sydney’s COVID-19 hotspot status on Friday

SYDNEYSIDERS can enter the Territory from today despite five new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the NSW capital yesterday.

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SYDNEYSIDERS can enter the Territory from today despite five new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the NSW capital yesterday.

Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Charles Pain confirmed that the NT would still proceed as planned and remove Sydney’s COVID-19 hot spot status on Friday.

This means Sydney residents will be able to arrive in the NT from today without having to quarantine for 14 days.

Dr Pain said the NT government had a “very thorough review” of the recent cases and decided it was safe to lift the hot spot status as planned.

He said the five new cases have now been established as being connected.

“The Chief Health Officer of New South Wales has provided us with a detailed analysis of those cases,” he said.

“And we are confident that they’re all connected.

“And therefore they constitute a single outbreak.

“This means that there’s no established community transmission by the definition that we have.”

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NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she expected two infection clusters to continue to grow.

But Dr Pain said they chose not to postpone the lifting of the hot spot.

“We’ve made our judgment of risk and our judgment of risk remains the same. “We could go on indefinitely postponing,” he said. “We will absolutely expect these sorts of cases to occur.” There are three Sydney flights scheduled to touch down in Darwin today. Another flight is scheduled to land in Alice Springs. The chief executive of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT), John Paterson, said he was “very disappointed” with the government’s decision.

“I think we should have at least given it another 24 hours and follow the lead of Queensland,” Mr Paterson said.

Chief Health Officer Hugh Heggie previously said revoking the Sydney hot spot status was conditional on the continuing lack of community transmission.

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