Greater Sydney lockdown extended by two weeks, as South Australia relaxes border restrictions with Queensland

Greater Sydney’s lockdown has been extended by “at least” two weeks, as the region’s COVID-19 outbreak continues to wreak havoc.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said stay at home orders would remain in place until at least 30 July for the Greater Sydney area.

“It always hurts to say this,” she said while announcing the extension at this morning’s COVID-19 update.

“The current settings in terms of what people can’t do won’t change for at least two weeks,” she said.

“Of course, if health advice changes and we need to do anything further, we will.”

The state recorded its second-highest number of community transmitted cases today with 97 new cases, 24 of which were active in the community.

Yesterday, the number of cases in NSW declined for the first time in a week; however, Berejiklian warned the decrease did not mean things were improving.

“One day is now a trend,” she said.

Meanwhile, South Australia government will relax its border restrictions with southeast Queensland from Friday, but Premier Steve Marshall said the ACT border would remain firmly closed.

“We are still concerned about the situation in NSW [and] we’ll continue to monitor that very carefully,” he said yesterday.

South Australia also reported a new exposure site after it was revealed that two removalists from NSW entered the state last Friday. The removalists visited the Shell service station at Tailem Bend last Friday between 5:20pm and 7pm local time.

Fron Friday, southeast Queensland will go back to level three restrictions, meaning travellers from this region will be required to test for COVID-19 on days one, five and 13.

“The other good news is that people who are currently in home-based quarantine who have been in southeast Brisbane over the last 14 days will also be allowed to come out,” Marshall said.

Featured image source: Facebook/gladysnsw