Dr Chant: Stresses seriousness of situation

DR Kerry Chant, chief medical officer said, “I can’t stress enough the seriousness of this situation” and urged everyone in the state intensely adhere to orders for the next two to three weeks.

Dr Chant said she was very concerned with the numbers of cases in western New South Wales and regional sewerage systems which were testing positive such as Burke, Wilcannia and Lennox Head.

There has been a case identified in Lennox Head and nine new cases in western NSW.

There have been no cases identified in Tamworth or Armidale.

There have been 415 new cases of covid-19 identified overnight, 4 people have died and 62 people are in intensive care.

Dr Chant cautioned, “the vaccine is not a silver bullet,” but is part of the solution. 

Dr Chant explained the vaccine takes two to three weeks until a person has a level of immunity and while it does reduce the chance of contracting the disease, reduce the likelihood of passing the disease to others, decrease hospitalisation and intensive care admissions, people need to adhere to the stay at home orders to reduce the numbers of cases in the community.

The Premier said no jurisdiction had eradicated the delta strain and said we would have to learn to manage the virus, but we need to get numbers of cases lower and vaccination rates higher. 

The Premier said 50 percent of the population has received their first dose of the vaccine, however there is no breakdown available of vaccination rates in regional local government areas.