NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian urges infected delivery drivers to get tested as state battles outbreak
NSW health authorities have admitted the virus is spreading to different locations each day and the Premier has called out one possible contributing factor.
There are fears infected food delivery drivers could have spread coronavirus to locations across Sydney not yet on the radar of health authorities.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian revealed the disturbing development on Saturday after the state posted 12 new infections, enough cases to plunge the rest of greater Sydney into a two-week lockdown.
An urgent warning was issued for anyone who attended food retail wholesaler Great Ocean Foods at 5/11 Cadogan St, Marrickville, between Monday, June 21, and Friday, June 25.
“We understand that about five or so people do go directly and purchase food from the Great Ocean Foods,” the Premier said.
“Our concern for those individuals is we have QR-coded a small number of people, but we believe there are probably people who did not check in using the QR code that was available at that premise.”
Ms Berejiklian also extended the warning to delivery drivers associated to the business who had become infectious.
“What we want people to do is anyone who received a delivery from Great Ocean Foods from Monday 21st to Friday 25th June – that person, plus their household members must immediately isolate and get tested,” she said.
“What concerns me is that we know that the infectious period dated back to the 21st. So with this Delta strain, we know that we are getting positive cases within 24-48 hours after the exposure.”
Ms Berejiklian said the risk was only low if the delivery driver had conducted a “touch-less” handover of a delivery to the customer.
“But if the person was a chatty delivery driver or had interactions or went into the cold room and put the product into the cold room and was there for some period of time … all of those elevate the risk,” she said.
“So that’s why we’re asking them, their household contacts, to go out and get tested.
“It may be a bit of over-testing but it allows us to get ahead of that curve because we don’t want to have a sequential situation where we test the person who has received the food – that person is positive and then we get to the next people.”
From 6pm on Saturday parts of NSW will go into a two-week lockdown until midnight on July 9 to stem the state’s latest outbreak.
All of Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast and Wollongong will go into a lockdown with stay-at-home orders.
The new rules mean residents will only be able to leave their homes for only four reasons.
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