CCTO
NSW Premier Dominic Perrotet has announced that the NSW government has put a ban on singing and dancing in hospitality in hospitality venues until after Australia Day and suspended elective surgery until mid-February. Major events are also to be assessed for risk on a case to case basis before they are allowed to proceed. These are in addition to the reinstituted mandatory requirement of wearing mask in public places such as supermarkets and the two square metre density limits.
He also announced teachers, nurses and other front-line health workers would in future need a booster shot to be considered fully vaccinated.
The government’s decisions followed the consistent high positive cases in the last several days. NSW Health authorities conducted more than 112,000 Covid tests in the past 24-hour reporting period as the elevated positivity rate shows no signs up declining. The reported local cases, as well as those in hospital and ICU, and the number of deaths are as shown below:
In the earliest days of the Omicron variant occurring in Australia, Mr Perrottet said the state could rely on its high vaccination rate to protect it from further Covid rule enforcement.
'Ultimately, we not only need to learn to live alongside the virus, but live alongside the variants as well,' he said on November 28.
'This pandemic is not over,' Mr Perrottet said. 'These variants will continue, cases will continue to rise and the best thing we can do to keep the community safe, keep your family safe is to go out and get vaccinated and get that booster shot when you can.'
The government is also overhauling testing procedures to cope with case surge.
It advised that a positive rapid antigen test for a symptomatic person or close contact will count as an official COVID-19 case, once Service NSW develops a method for people to upload results. That's expected mid-next week.
Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant has consistently made her plea:
"Please do not go out and about if you have symptoms. Please stay at home, get access to a RAT, or if you can't ... have a PCR test."
In the meantime, the Commonwealth Health ministry has rolled out an updated COVID 19 test and isolate national protocols. See below.
