Australia faced a new Covid-19 cluster in Sydney on Tuesday, June 22, just as Melbourne finally seemed out of the woods, illustrating difficulties in managing the pandemic. Ten people tested positive overnight in Sydney, Australia’s main city, bringing the Bondi Beach area cluster to 21 cases.
Mask wearing is again mandatory in indoor areas across all Greater Sydney. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said mask wearing will also be extended an additional week from Thursday when it was set to end in previously selected councils. There will be a requirement to adhere to that compulsory mask wearing indoors for hospitality workers when we are going shopping, going grocery shopping, going to events inside,” she said.
“It is only when you are eating or drinking indoors at a venue that you can’t or shouldn’t wear a mask. “In every other circumstance, if you live or are in Sydney, you must wear a mask for another week beyond Wednesday midnight.”
The premier cited “an increased level of concern” over how transmissible the virus is.
The premier was asked if health authorities were considering a lockdown to which Ms Berejiklian said she was following the advice of Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant.
“At this stage because all but one case is linked to an existing case and that case was only discovered a few hours ago, that gives us a degree of confidence that what we have asked people to do matches the risk that is there at the moment,” she said.
“If those changes, if we suddenly have a number of unlinked cases and if we suddenly have them outside the geographic region, they are concentrated in that will obviously adjust the health advice and we will respond to that.”
She added Dr Chant “foresaw” more cases in the cluster in household contacts.
