Coronavirus: Delta fears leave entire CBDs on alert

Hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders across seven councils were subject to immediate mandatory mask use indoors from Sunday after three new Covid-19 cases were recorded in NSW.

Barber Alberto Suryajaya and Amy Lewns don face masks while attending to customers at Truefitt and Hill in Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building. Picture: Jane Dempster

Hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders across seven councils were subject to immediate mandatory mask use indoors from Sunday after three new Covid-19 cases were recorded in NSW.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian introduced tighter restrictions as she confirmed Sydney’s eastern suburbs cluster had grown to nine cases. “In addition to public transport, there will be seven councils or local government areas within Sydney covering the CBD, inner west and southeast,” she said.

“We’ll ask people to wear a mask indoors in a mandatory way so you must wear a mask if you are in and around those seven local government areas.”

The restrictions will last until Thursday.

Mask use is now mandatory indoors at retail venues and for hospitality staff in Randwick, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West, City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra. It is also compulsory on public transport in Wollongong and Shellharbour.

At Truefitt and Hill in Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building, barber Amy Lewns, 25, said while face masks often got in the way, wearing one was a small price to pay to keep safe. “If you look down you lose that peripheral, which is blocked by the mask but otherwise I don’t mind, it’s a small thing to do, a small ask,” she said.

Ms Lewns said prior to the vaccine rollout, barbers often felt vulnerable to contracting Covid-19 due to the nature of their work.

“It was more scary when numbers were spiking. We take good precaution but when you’re dealing with the public you’re always more at risk.”

NSW’s two new cases on Sunday included a man in his 30s residing in the Sydney CBD who attended Westfield Bondi Junction and also travelled to Wollongong. A household contact of the man, a woman in her 30s who attended Bondi Junction shopping centre, also tested positive.

On Sunday evening Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District confirmed a Wollongong-based obstetrician saw a patient who tested positive and was “linked to the Bondi cluster”. The doctor has tested negative for the virus but will remain in isolation for 14 days.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant announced two further cases were recorded overnight on Saturday, which will be included in Monday’s figures.

They were both Sutherland Shire residents in their 50s; one a woman and the other a man who is believed to have contracted the virus while working in a Salvation Army store, Dr Chant said.

Less than 24 hours after Queensland imposed border restrictions on residents from Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Brisbane’s entire CBD was listed as a Covid exposure site over fears the highly infectious Delta variant was spreading through the city.

Concerns arose after an international aircrew member who travelled some 30km across Brisbane tested positive on Saturday, the day she left hotel quarantine.

On Sunday evening Queensland Health issued a statement confirming the flight attendant did not have the Delta variant.

“Queensland Health is continuing investigations into the exact variant, and the source of the case.”

The Brisbane Airport DFO store visited by a Covid case. Picture: David Clark

On Sunday Victoria announced it was investigating two cases that had tested positive once leaving hotel quarantine.

State Health Minister Martin Foley said an expert panel would be set up to determine how the returned travellers “produced conflicting results on different testing platforms over the past 24 hours” after exiting hotel quarantine.