NSW has recorded 78 new local COVID cases with Premier Gladys Berejiklian saying the drop in daily cases indicated tough stay-at-home measures have “stabilised” the outbreak.
The new cases were diagnosed from 62,860 tests undertaken in the 24-hours until 8pm on Monday.
Twenty-one cases were in the community for their entire infectious period and eight cases were in isolation for part of their infectious period.
The isolation status of 12 cases remains under investigation.
The 78 new cases is down on the 98 reported on the previous day.
Ms Berejiklian said the effort of the community was making a difference.
“We’ve stabilised the virus,” she said on Tuesday.
“We wouldn’t have thrown everything at it if we didn’t think we had a chance of crushing it and I know that if we all work together we can quash it.”
“That 78 number would have been much, much higher had people not been doing the right thing,” she said.
A total of 1418 people have now been diagnosed with the virus since the outbreak began on June 16.
People living in Greater Sydney, Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong, and Shellharbour are in the fourth week of a lockdown and the government is under intense pressure over a sudden decision to shut down the state’s construction industry.
Builders, unions and construction companies have formed a united front to lobby the government to allow some workers back on sites before the end of the month.
Ms Berejiklian defended the construction shutdown as necessary but said the government was working with the sector on safe ways to open up again on July 31.
She flagged the industry would have extra safety measures including on-site COVID testing.
“It was important for us to take a pause so that the industry can resume and continue safely and indefinitely.
On the weekend the premier blindsided the industry by announcing the unprecedented two-week shut down, costing the NSW economy at least $700 million per week and forcing 250,000 tradies to down tools.
CFMEU state secretary Darren Greenfield says if the shutdown continues into August … “businesses will start to collapse”.
A southwest Sydney woman in her 50s who died on Monday is the fifth COVID-19 death in NSW since mid-June and the 61st recorded since the pandemic began last year.
The Green Valley woman was the mother of two removalists who travelled to central-west NSW while allegedly knowing they were COVID-19 positive.
NSW Health issued more than 20 alerts for venues and transport routes on Monday night, including a bottle shop at Coffs Harbour, with the north coastal town on alert after a COVID positive person visited numerous venues last week.
There are 95 COVID-19 cases in hospital, with 27 people in intensive care, 11 of whom are ventilated.
A full list of NSW exposure sites can be found at health.nsw.gov.au
AAP
