The Northern Rivers region of Northern NSW will be under stay-at-home orders from 6pm on August 9 until 11:59pm on August 17, after an infected person travelled from Sydney to the area. News that a case had been diagnosed in the Byron Bay area had been announced at the state government’s morning press briefing on August 9, but state health experts now fear the virus may be circulating within the community after several exposure sites were identified. The areas under restrictions, which will be the same rules as those currently in effect across Greater Sydney, will include Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore and Ballina.
Breaches of Greater Sydney’s stay-at-home orders have already led to outbreaks in the Hunter and Lower Hunter, Dubbo, Armidale, Singleton and now Northern NSW in recent days. Due to the high transmissibility of the Delta variant, vaccination has now become the frontline strategy for addressing the outbreak in NSW, as cases of community transmission continue to climb despite the strictest lockdown settings ever implemented in NSW being in place.