On September 14, the first daily press briefing without a senior member of the NSW government present took place, transforming the proceedings from the usual shouting match into a strangely calming ASMR experience. The video was helmed by deputy chief medical officer Dr Jeremy McAnulty, and while it might have appeared that this update was merely perfunctory, some potentially major news was announced.
Daily cases have begun to stabilise, and although McAnulty said it would take another couple of days of data to officially declare a trend, it appeared that after 11 long weeks, NSW’s lockdown settings were finally “flattening the curve.”
McAnulty was cautious about raising hopes too high, suggesting that the drop in numbers could be a reflection of lower testing rates over the weekend, but cases have shown some encouraging decline over the past four days, from 1,573 on September 11 to 1,136 cases on September 14.
The state is also just days away from hitting its next major vaccination target, with almost 79 per cent of adults in NSW having now received at least one dose of a vaccine. Some 46.5 per cent of adults in NSW are now fully vaccinated. Some LGAs in Western and Southwestern Sydney are leading the nation for the highest levels of vaccination, including Paramatta (85.2 per cent first dose), Campbelltown (87.1 per cent first dose) and Blacktown (89.5 per cent first dose). However, vaccination rates have begun to slow, from 121,181 jabs on September 10 to just 37,571 jabs on September 13.