The number of COVID-19 cases related to the Bondi cluster in the latest outbreak in Australia’s Sydney grew to 21 on Tuesday.
The state of New South Wales (NSW) recorded five locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to 8.00 p.m. local time on Monday night.
The health department was also notified of another seven new local cases overnight.
Among all the new cases, a child, who attends a primary school in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, has been preliminarily found to be an unlinked case.
“In this case, we don’t have preliminary information (on) a source for this child’s exposure, so we are looking for an intermediate source,’’ said NSW Chief Health Officer, Kerry Chant.
NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, announced a one-week extension of mandatory mask-wearing in indoor public venues of Greater Sydney to June 30 at midnight after the worrying rise of new cases.
However, she dismissed any form of lockdown in Sydney at this stage, saying the existing measures match the current risk at the moment.
“If that changes, if we suddenly have a number of unlinked cases and if we suddenly have them outside the geographic region they are concentrated in that we will obviously adjust the health advice and we will respond to that,’’ Berejiklian said.
The health department also continued to ramp up testing, with a total of 28,645 tests completed in 24 hours to 8.00 p.m. local time on Monday.
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The premier urged the people, who passed through a growing number of hotspots, to get tested.
She also expected a growing number of cases in the coming days due to the highly infectious nature of the Delta variant.
