On Sunday June 20, NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announced an expansion of the mask mandates introduced on June 18 in response to the Eastern Suburbs outbreak. There are now nine confirmed cases in this latest Sydney cluster.
From 4pm on Sunday, June 20, masks will be mandatory in public indoor settings including shops, supermarkets and hospitality venues unless eating or drinking, across seven local government areas in inner Sydney: Randwick, Bayside, Botany Bay, Inner West, City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra. Masks on public transport, which is already compulsory across Greater Sydney, will now also be required in Wollongong and Shellharbour.
The NSW government are calling for all Sydneysiders to remain on high alert for symptoms and to come forward for testing if they show any signs of ill-health. The state’s chief medical officer Kerry Chant said that the number of people getting tested was still too low, after only 25,000 people were screened on Saturday, June 19. “I would like to see those numbers exceed 30,000 to 40,000 tests,” Chant said. “The quicker we can diagnose cases, the quicker we can get ahead of the transmission of this virus.”