Two elderly residents and one staff member living in a Japara aged care facility (pictured) in Bayview have tested positive to COVID-19, as Sydney battles to manage a growing cluster of cases that’s spreading across the city.
“We are putting in our private testing arrangements for that particular facility so we can make sure there is no spread there,” Acting-Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly said this afternoon.
From now until midnight on Wednesday, residents of the local government area of Sydney’s Northern Beaches have been told to stay home.
“They will be asked to stay at home unless for four essential reasons,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
People will be permitted to exercise and go to their local shopping centre. However, any unnecessary activities are no longer allowed.
The four essential reasons are:
- To go shopping for food and other essential items;
- To go out for work;
- Compassionate grounds;
- To receive medical treatment or to visit an isolated relative.
“We are hoping that will give us sufficient time to get on top of the virus so we can then ease up for Christmas and the New Year moving forward,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Residents of the wider Sydney region have also been asked to limit their movements, avoid any non-essential travel and wear protective masks in public areas.
“For the rest of Sydney, can I please ask everybody to abandon nonessential activity until that time,” the Premier said.
“We do not want the virus to spread outside of the Northern Beaches.
“We do not want perhaps, unidentified strands of the virus outside of Sydney, outside of the Northern Beaches, to start getting to an extent which concerns us.”
With Christmas just six sleeps away, Ms Berejkilian said it was possible the state could reverse the latest round of eased restrictions around Sydney.
“Because there is a level of concern about whether seeding has occurred outside the Northern Beaches, we are watching the situation and if we need to, we may very well revert back to what we had previous to the last couple of weeks where restrictions were eased from four square metres to two square metres,” she said.
The majority of new local cases have been traced back to the Avalon Bowling Club and the Avalon RSL.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said there are only a “handful” of cases that had not been linked to either the Avalon Bowling Club and the Avalon RSL.
Ms Berejiklian said she expected more cases to emerge tomorrow, the outbreak remained “contained”.
“The case numbers are not looking like they will be going down in the next 48 hours, and if we want a chance to give people a good Christmas and a good New Year’s, we are trying to get on top of it more quickly with this action,” she said.
