The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has declared “the green shoots are there” in Sydney’s Covid-19 outbreak despite the state recording another 35 cases of the virus, the highest daily count in more than a year.
At the halfway point of Sydney’s two-week lockdown, the outbreak has grown to 261 cases since a Bondi limousine driver tested positive on 16 June, spreading from the city’s eastern suburbs to new outbreaks of concern.
But on Saturday Berejiklian and the NSW chief medical officer, Dr Kerry Chant, pointed to “glimmers of hope” in the race to control the outbreak. Of the new cases, only nine were infectious in the community, and a feared surge has so far failed to materialise.
“While as predicted the number of cases is going up, we are seeing a greater proportion of those cases in isolation, which is exactly what we want to see,” Berejiklian said.
“The green shoots are there. The green shoots of the lockdown doing what we hoped it would certainly there. We have not seen a huge surge in cases and we certainly feel through our contact tracing that we are not at stage missing any chains of community transmission.”
But Berejiklian would not say whether the lockdown would end on Friday as scheduled, with the number of positive cases continuing to rise and new outbreaks shifting authorities’ “central focus” to western Sydney and the city’s north shore.
“I anticipate obviously sometime next week we’ll be in a position to the tell the community where things are at, it’s a bit too soon at the moment, [but] we have seen the tide turn, we have seen those green shoots,” Berejiklian said.
Chant too struck a positive chord, saying she was “forever an optimist” about the chances of leaving lockdown.
“This is a time when the focus needs to shift from south-eastern to those communities in south-western and Western Sydney ... the next few days will really disclose the pattern,” she said.
“As the premier said, there were some glimmers of hope last night that we would actually see more people in isolation. A number of the links were made and we have solved a couple of puzzles overnight. That all gives me confidence, but it is day by day.”
Berejiklian again reiterated that she was “disappointed” by a national cabinet decision to reduce the number of people returning to Australia, and admitted it could affect the state’s plan to begin allowing international students to return to NSW.
“New South Wales has always been extremely ambitious in the way we approach dealing with Covid,” she said. “It causes us to reconsider all of those things,” she said.
“The other states have clearly indicated they don’t want to continue to welcome Australians in the number we had. And it does also impact then other people you can welcome home. And so I think it does put a huge question mark over those plans.”
Berejiklian urged NSW residents to avoid shopping centres and indoor areas over the weekend, saying “the next few days are critical”.
“If you do want relief from your home today, if you have been staying at home and doing the right thing, please avoid shopping centres or indoor areas,” she said.
“If you do feel you need to get out of the house for exercise, please go outdoors … We know the virus transmits less when you’re outdoors, and please make sure you keep good social distance.”
It came as Queensland recorded five new cases of community transmission of the virus, with premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reaffirming that Brisbane and Moreton Bay’s lockdown would end at 6pm but urging residents to wear masks and us QR codes at venues.
“We’re all in this together and we’ve gotta have our trust in one another, and we’ve got to act as a community together,” she said.
Among the new cases was a man in his 50s who worked as a baggage handler at Brisbane domestic airport and lives in the suburb of Carindale who was “not a known contact”.