From nearly 78,000 tests in the 24-hour reporting period between July 14-15, 97 new cases of community transmission were diagnosed. Concerningly, 29 of these cases were infectious while in the community.
Despite the number of people infectious in the community remaining stubbornly high for several days, the premier did not announce any additional health measures in her daily press briefing on July 16. However, Gladys Berejiklian did hint that stricter lockdown rules were being considered.
"If we need to go harder, of course, we will," the premier said. "But we need to make sure that any measures that are put in place are going to hit the mark and going to do the job we need them to do.
"There is no doubt that the numbers are not where we would like them. I am assuming because we had, in the last 24 hours, at least 29 of those 97 cases were infectious in the community, the numbers tomorrow will be greater than what we saw today. Please know that every day on an hourly basis we receive ongoing reviews and we make sure we review all the time the settings we have in place."
The premier also called on Sydneysiders to get tested if they have any connection, however remote, to anyone who has recently tested positive. The reason for this call to action is in response to some emerging factors that are unique to this latest Sydney outbreak.
There has been an increase in the number of unlinked cases over the past 24 hours, reflecting that the speed at which Delta is spreading is producing chains of transmission that are farther reaching and more complex than any previous outbreak in NSW. People can be infectious before they manifest any symptoms, spreading the virus unknowingly to their close contacts, who then spread it to theirs. Therefore, people with even the most casual connection to a positive case can be exposed despite being several degrees of separation from that infectious person. Health minister Brad Hazzard said that some studies of the Delta variant found it to be 1,000 times more infectious than other strains of the virus.
Southwest Sydney continues to be the epicentre of the Delta outbreak, with the premier noting that three quarters of the state’s cases have been detected in the Fairfield LGA. On July 14, the state government issued a testing directive that anyone based in the Fairfield LGA who travels outside of that area for essential work should be tested every three days to demonstrate they are virus free. Anyone from Metropolitan Sydney who travels to the regions for essential work is required to get tested every seven days.