COVID Australia: New South Wales has recorded 13,51 new local cases of Covid-19

New South Wales has recorded 1,351 new local cases of coronavirus and 12 deaths on Thursday, in the equal-deadliest day of the pandemic for the state. 

Health Minister Brad Hazzard announced of the new deaths, six were women and six were men, ten of whom were not vaccinated.

Mr Hazzard said the regional areas of Lismore and Albury will be plunged into a seven-day lockdown from 6pm on Thursday after new positive cases emerged. 

Meanwhile, twelve country towns will be released from lockdown from 1pm with residents urged to remain vigilant while enjoying their new-found freedom. 

Albury, located on the Victorian-NSW border, recorded two mystery cases with ‘possible links to Sydney’ but believed to be unrelated to each other.  

One case of coronavirus was detected in Lismore in the state’s north, again with possible links to Sydney, with health officials concerned over exposure in the area.  

‘NSW Health has made a decision that the period of lockdown initially will be seven days,’ Mr Hazzard said.  

‘In the normal course, more often than not, Health determines it will be 14 days but in this case, looking at the issues, Health has determined that seven days will be appropriate. 

‘But I’m just warning the community that it may be longer.’

Deputy Chief Health Officer Marianne Gale said health authorities remained wary of Lismore due to the low levels of vaccination recorded in the city. 

However she said the new case and the high level of exposure in a school and the wider community is what triggered the decision for the seven-day lockdown. 

‘We understand there will be a segment of the population who feels very strongly about it, but I feel very confident that the vast majority of the population in the area is really embracing vaccination,’ Dr Gale said.  

Residents in these areas have been urged to remain vigilant for symptoms and to come forward for testing, with NSW Health to deploy extra pop-up testing sites in Albury and Lismore. 

Deputy Premier John Barilaro said the lockdown in Lismore meant health authorities ‘would work around’ the newly re-established border bubble with Queensland.

‘We will work with the cross-border commissioner. We’ve opened up the Tweed. We worked hard with Deputy Premier Miles to lift restrictions and put in place a border bubble,’ he said. 

Health officials are contemplating the fate of residents in Glen Innes, a Northern Tablelands town, after the area recorded a positive case overnight.

‘We’ll work with the local health team when we have further information,’ Mr Hazzard said. 

‘We’ll do that in a measured way before a knee-jerk reaction about locking down an area. It’s no different to cases in Albury that were identified yesterday.’   

Mr Barilaro announced a further 12 local government areas in regional and rural NSW would be freed from lockdown from 1pm on Thursday. 

The LGA’s include Bega Valley, Blayney, Bogan, Cabonne, Dungog, Forbes, Muswellbrook, Narrabri, Parkes, Singleton, snowy Monaro and the Upper Hunter shire LGAs.   

The country towns coming out of lockdown have been deemed low-risk by health officials and have not recorded any cases of the virus for the last 14 days. 

Residents in these areas can host up to five visitors in their homes, with 20 people allowed to gather in outdoor settings. 

Hospitality venues, retail stores, personal services, gyms, indoor recreation and sporting facilities and schools will reopen with limits on capacity.

Up to 50 guests can attend weddings and funerals while churches and places of worship can resume with one person per 4sqm rule, with no singing. 

Masks will remain mandatory in all settings, with hospitality staff to be required to wear a mask while outdoors. 

‘This is a good news days for regional and rural NSW. You join other communities that have their stay-at-home orders lifted, reminding everybody that it is still a restricted environment,’ Mr Barilaro said. 

‘If you do visit a local government area in lockdown, the reality is those stay-at-home orders come back with you so the reality is minimise mobility.

‘Vaccination continues to be the key in regional and rural New South Wales.’ 

The deputy premier also teased that lockdown could be eased earlier than expected if the state gets to 85 or 90 per cent single-dose before mid-October.

Freedom Day is expected to be on October 18, once 70 per cent of the NSW population have received both doses of the jab.

Dr Gale said health authorities felt ‘cautiously optimistic’ after a reporter asked if she thought the state had hit a peak in its current outbreak. 

‘I can’t hand on heart say we’ve peaked, I’d like to think we have but we have a conservative approach,’ she said, adding a single event could cause a peak. 

‘It’s pleasing at the moment for our case numbers to have stabilised. We do know they bounce around a little bit.

‘We may yet see an increase but really the key thing for all of us is … this is in our collective hands.’

Of the 12 deaths reported on Thursday, one person was in their 40s, one person was in their 50s, four people were in their 60s, two people were in their 70s, three people were in their eighties and one person in their 90s.  

Mr Hazzard said there are more than 15,000 people with Covid-19 who are being cared for in the state’s health system.   

There are currently 1,231 Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital, 231 people in intensive care and 108 requiring ventilation.  

As it stands, 80.1% of the over-16 population has received a first dose of Covid vaccine and 48.5% of the entire community over 16 are fully vaccinated.

‘I want to thank the community for coming out in such strong numbers to be vaccinated because there are almost 8.5 million people in NSW that have had vaccines administered to them,’ Mr Hazzard said. 

The health minister was asked if he could ‘muster much sympathy’ for TikTok star Jon-Bernard Kairouz who attended an anti-lockdown rally in July and was hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19 this week. 

‘Look I would say I would have sympathy for anyone that gets Covid. Covid can actually kill you,’ Mr Hazzard said. 

‘So even though I might be frustrated with that gentleman’s juvenile way of approaching the situation, I think the rest of us in the community would say we still have sympathy with the fact that he’s now got it, because obviously, that puts him at risk, it puts close contacts at risk. 

‘There’s a very strong message there and that is don’t take this trivially, don’t be silly about it, take every aspect of Covid-19 seriously, and that means get vaccinated.’ 

It comes after Premier Gladys Berejiklian lifted the 9pm-5am curfew in Sydney’s local government areas of concern on Thursday morning.  

She announced the state had hit a vaccination milestone, with 80 per cent of adults having received their first dose. 

The state recorded 1,259 cases new cases of Covid-19 and 12 deaths on Wednesday.

Ms Berejiklian said a decline in cases in the areas of concern led to the decision to lift the lockdown’s most hated rule, but urged Sydneysiders to remain vigilant as the state steams toward ‘Freedom Day’.

‘We’ve seen a stabilisation in the last few days and we don’t want to see that trend go the wrong way,’ she said.

‘We still have work to do. We can all see the light at the end of the tunnel but we still have work to do and I ask everybody, especially in the local government areas of concern to hold the line and take care you follow all the other rules in place.’ 

Ms Berejiklian also confirmed the government will mandate only vaccinated people will be able to attend the businesses listed in the state’s 70 per cent double dose freedom roadmap, including pubs, restaurants, gyms and non-critical retail.

Unvaccinated residents will be locked out of hospitality and retail venues.

We’ll have the vaccination passport in New South Wales when we hit 70% double dose,’ she said.

‘You’ll be able to check in with your QR code and see whether or not you’re vaccinated and that’s really important.’ 

The premier did say that there could be exceptions where small businesses that are doing it tough may be allowed to serve unvaccinated customers. 

NSW will hit 70 per cent double vaccinate in 27 days on October 11, which will see the lifting of the lockdown that has been in place since June 25. 

The state should then hit 80 per cent double vaccinated on October 23, where restrictions will ease further and sport stadiums will reopen.