Greater Sydney residents have been warned they may not see life return to pre-lockdown normal until COVID-19 cases are down to zero, as NSW braces for more community transmission.
NSW recorded 44 new local COVID-19 cases on Friday, with 29 of those either partially or fully infectious in the community.
"I need everyone to be shocked because when I said just a few days before we had to go into lockdown that this was the scariest period for New South Wales during the pandemic, unfortunately those words are absolutely the case."Exercise outdoors is now restricted to only two people, and is allowed only within 10 kilometres of the resident’s local government area. Browsing at the shops is also banned.
“Until we get those vaccination rates higher, we do not have the luxury of considering living with this virus.”Of Friday's new cases, 35 are linked to a known case or cluster, with 25 household contacts. Almost half of the new cases are from south-west Sydney, eight are from south-east Sydney and seven are from western Sydney.
The number of close contacts isolating across the state also doubled in 24 hours, from 7,000 to 14,000.
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