Coronavirus: Sydney hotspot residents urged to stay home and stop the spread

All the residents of Sydney’s COVID-19 hotspots are being urged to put themselves into self-imposed lockdown.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Jeremy Piper

All the residents of Sydney’s COVID-19 hotspots are being urged to put themselves into self-imposed lockdown, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian encouraging them to “reduce their mobility” in the coming weeks while testing continues at pop-up clinics.

Ms Berejiklian and her senior colleagues have for months advocated a strategy of opening up the economy in conjunction with physical distancing, face masks and safe hygiene practices.

But on Wednesday, Ms Berejiklian appeared to back away from this stance in favour of soft-lockdown conditions of the kind enforced by police in April, when residents of NSW were forbidden to leave their homes unless it was for an essential purpose.

She said residents living within a growing list of suburbs where COVID-19 outbreaks were apparent should limit their daily activities, stating this was necessary to prevent a return to full lockdown. The advice was extended to all residents, rather than just those who were seeking testing for the virus.

“I would ask residents generally in those areas to reduce their mobility, to reduce what they do in the next couple of weeks,” Ms ­Berejiklian said.

“If you speak to health experts, they will say that the biggest factor in reducing the spread is reducing people … moving around and spreading it unintentionally.”

Similar remarks about reduced mobility were made during a television interview on Tuesday.

Jeremy McAnulty, executive director of health protection at NSW Health, told The Australian that a reduction in mobility referred generally to social interactions. He was unable to clarify whether this included visits to restaurants, gyms and train stations.

Senior members of the Berejiklian cabinet have argued vociferously for the state to remain as economically active as possible, even while the virus is still circulating, arguing that a second lockdown of the kind imposed in Victoria would destroy businesses and devastate the state’s finances.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has commissioned Treasury modelling on the impact of the Victorian lockdown, arguing in an opinion piece published in The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday that similar moves would cost NSW about $1.4bn a week.

He added: “We cannot keep our communities in a state of suspended animation indefinitely … we must proceed with caution, ­accepting that COVID-19 is a new risk we must learn to live with and work around.”

As the Premier stepped up her messaging on reduced mobility, the daily number of transmissions appeared to hover in place.

Dr McAnulty told reporters of 19 new infections recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, two of which were among returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

The NSW opposition has been critical of Ms Berejiklian’s messaging throughout the pandemic, most recently in relation to the use of face masks, which have not been mandated in Sydney as they have been in Melbourne.

Labor is calling for face masks to be made compulsory on public transport.