Covid goes bush with worrying alerts for regional towns amid NINETY ONE new exposure sites – including dozens of busy supermarkets across Sydney
An alarming 91 new venues from across NSW have been added to the state's skyrocketing exposure sites list, including more than a dozen busy supermarkets across Sydney.
Twenty two grocery stores extending from the Hunter Region to the Illawarra have been placed on alert as fears grow the highly infectious Delta outbreak will continue to spread its tentacles into regional towns.
More than 25 of the new sites are outside of the state's capital city, including 16 venues in Byron Bay where an infected Sydney traveller is feared to have spread the virus.
There were also five new venue alerts in Dubbo, in the state's west, as NSW recorded a further 344 locally-acquired cases on Wednesday and the deaths of two men aged in their 30s and 90s.
A worrying 91 new venues have been added to NSW's exposure sites list as Sydney's outbreak seeps into the regions (pictured, a masked woman ventures out in Sydney's locked-down southwest suburbs)
The venues include more than a dozen supermarket stores across Sydney, with the Bankstown Woolworths being listed with 17 exposure times
Tim Koerstz Pharmacy is one of the five new venue of concern in Dubbo - which is now also in lockdown
The new Dubbo sites are believed to be linked to a man from the outback town of Walgett in the state's north-west, whose unexpected infection will plunge the area into lockdown from 7pm on Wednesday.
In the Hunter region, a popular café and a vape shop have been placed on alert, while further south hundreds of passengers who travelled on nine buses across Sydney have also been declared close contacts.
In total, 17 public transport routes stretching across all corners of the city have been affected after a bus driver worked multiple trips over several days while infectious.
While Sydney's Covid-ravaged west and southwestern suburbs remain the major cause for concern for contact tracers, spot fires of transmission are worryingly developing in many parts of regional NSW.
Latest Covid exposure sites in NSW
Anyone who attended the following venues at the times listed is a close contact and must get tested and isolate for 14 days since they were there, regardless of the result:
Lambton: Planet Fitness Lambton - Turton Road Tuesday 3 August 3.05pm to 5.00pm
Byron Bay: Byron Massage Clinic - 6/4 Bay Lane Monday 2 August 10.00am to 11.00am. Wednesday 4 August 10.45am to 12.00pm
Byron Bay: Westpac ATM - 73 Johnson Street Tuesday 3 August 1.30pm to 1.45pm
Bryon Bay: Success Thai Food - 3/31 Lawson Street Tuesday 3 August 1.15pm to 1.45pm. Friday 6 August 4.45pm to 5.15pm
Byron Bay: Byron Bay General Store - 26 Bangalow Road Wednesday 4 August 7.45am to 8.15am
Bangalow: Butcher Baker Café - 13 Byron Street Thursday 5 August 11.15am to 11.45am
Bangalow: Sparrow Coffee - 1A/32-34 Byron Street Thursday 5 August 6.45am to 7.15am
Byron Bay: Woolworths - 106 Johnson Street Saturday 7 August 12.45pm to 1.45pm
Bryon Bay: Zaza Kebabs - 8/4 Johnson Street Saturday 7 August 12.00pm to 12.30pm
Byron Bay: Ampol Service Station - 76/78 Shirley Street Saturday 7 August 11.45am to 12.15pm
Byron Bay: Ozi Go Car Wash- Ewingsdale Road & Bayshore Drive Saturday 7 August 11.30am to 12.00pm
Byron Bay: Japonaise Kitchen - 2/25-27 Lawson Street Saturday 7 August 4.30pm to 5pm
Newrybar: Harvest Cafe Village - 18, 22 Old Pacific Highway, Sunday 1 August 7.30am to 7.45am and Saturday 7 August 9.15am to 10.15am
Byron Bay: Izakaya Gallery KURA- 8/4 Bay Lane FRiday 6 August 5.30pm to 6pm
Bangalow: Pharmacy - 23 Byron Street Thursday 5 August 11am to 11.30am
Bangalow: Foodworks - Shop 2/2 Byron Street Monday 2 August 9.45am to 11.15am
Glendale: Boho Black Café, 387 Lake Road, Tuesday 3 August 9am to 9.30pm
Lidcombe: Toohey's Brewery - 29 Nyrang Street, Tuesday 3 August 1.55pm to 4pm
Charlestown: Super Vape Store - 260 Charlestown Road, Thursday 5 August 3pm to 3.30pm
Dubbo: Tim Koertz Pharmacy - 98 Tamworth Street, Monday 9 August 1pm to 1.15pm
Dubbo: Covid Safe Clinic - 77 Myall Street, Tuesday 10 August 7.45am to 8.35am
Anyone who travelled on the following bus routes at the listed times in a close contact and must get tested and isolate for 14 days regardless of the result:
Bus 941: From Bankstown Station, Stand E to Hillcrest Ave, Greenacre, Sunday 1 August 1.13pm to 1.24pm
Bus 941: From Hillcrest Ave, Gosling Park, to Bankstown Station, Stand C, Monday 2 August 6.05am to 6.15am
Bus 913: From Bankstown Central, The Mall, to Gosling Park, Hillcrest Ave, Greenacre, Monday 2 August 4.55pm to 5.03pm
Bus 320: From Mascot Post Office to Pacific Highway opposite Gore Hill Oval, Friday 6 August 10.19am to 11.26am, 2.34pm to 3.41pm, and 5.43pm to 7.03pm, and Sunday 8 August 10.32am to 11.33am and 12.52pm to 1.53pm
Bus 320: From Gore Hill Technology Park to Botany Road before King Street, Friday 6 August 11.35am to 12.45pm, 4.10pm to 5.29pm, and 7.12pm to 8.13pm, and Sunday 8 August 11.44am to 12.37pm and 2.04pm to 2.57pm
Bus 422: From Kogarah Station, Railway Parade, Stand C, to Pitt Street before Hay Street, Friday August 8 4.28pm to 5.04pm
Bus 422: From Pitt Street opposite Barlow Street to Kogarah Station, Regent St, Stand D, Friday 8 August 5.17pm to 6.05pm
Bus 348: From Wolli Creek Station, Discovery Point Place, to Bondi Junction Station, Stand P, Friday 8 August 7pm to 7.47pm
Bus 348: From Bondi Junction Station, Stand H to Wolli Creek Station, Discovery Point Place, August 8 7.56pm to 8.41pm
Anyone who attended the following venues at the times listed is urged to immediately get tested and isolate for until receiving further advice from NSW Health:
Dubbo Don Crosby Veterinary Surgery 327 Darling Street Saturday 7 August 8.55am to 9.45am
Dubbo The Harvest Cafe 64 Palmer Street Saturday 7 August 9.50am to 10.10am
Dubbo Ashcrofts IGA 95 Tamworth Street Sunday 8 August 12.35pm to 12.55pm
For the list of casual contact sites from NSW Health, click here.
Among the long list of exposure sites flagged in the Northern NSW town of Byron Bay was the iconic General Store, with anyone who attended on August 4 between 7.45am to 8.15am considered a close contact and urged to immediately get tested and self isolate for 14 days, regardless of the result.
Shoppers who visited Byron Bay Woolworths on August 7 from 12.45pm to 1.45pm are also close contacts, along with diners at a host of local cafes in Byron Bay and the nearby Bangalow area.
The flood of alerts in the region are linked to Zoran Radovanovic, 52, who drove to the popular beachside community from Sydney's eastern suburbs with his two teenage daughters at the end of July to look at a real estate property - a loophole which is allowed despite Greater Sydney's strict lockdown.
The Rose Bay man allegedly repeatedly refused to cooperate with the state's contact tracers and was charged with breaching public health orders.
An eerily quiet Sydney Opera House is seen on Wednesday with 80 per cent of people across NSW now living under lockdown
The majority of casual exposure sites are still in Sydney's west and south-west (pictured, Cabramatta on Wednesday)
With major concerns the man who later checked himself into Lismore Base Hospital may have spread the virus undetected across the region, the Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore and Ballina Shire Local Government Areas were all sent into lockdown from 6pm August 9 until August 17.
The development comes as Premier Gladys Berejiklian also ordered Dubbo into a snap week-long lockdown from 1pm Wednesday after two cases were found in the regional town.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said the cases were a young child and a woman in her 40s.
WHERE THE DELTA COVID STRAIN IS SPREADING IN NEW SOUTH WALES
Of the 344 cases reported overnight:
112 are from the South Western Sydney Local Health District
110 Western Sydney
43 Nepean Blue Mtns
29 Sydney LHD
23 South-eastern Sydney
14 Hunter/New England
7 Northern Sydney
2 Central Coast.
1 Northern NSW
1 Illawarra Shoalhaven.
2 Western NSW
'It is critical that the lockdown is complied with in Dubbo, and even though it comes in to place at 1pm today, we are asking people to make those decisions and act in a way as if it is in place at the moment,' Dr Chant said.
The five new Covid exposure sites in Dubbo include the Don Crosby Veterinary Surgery, the Harvest Cafe, Ashcrofts IGA supermarket, Tim Koerstz Pharmacy and the Covid Safe Clinic.
Health officials also found 14 new cases in the Hunter-New England area, with Ms Berejiklian warning the continuing spread of cases meant it was unlikely eight LGAs in the region would be released from lockdown on time later this week.
The Harvest Cafe in Dubbo was flagged as Covid exposure site after two cases were recorded in the regional town with another man testing positive in Walgett
Health authorities also sent out a public health alert for Don Crosby Vets in Dubbo
'The Hunter doesn't look like it will come out of lockdown later this week - however we will wait on health advice,' she said.
As cases in the Hunter region continue to climb, two Newcastle venues - Charlestown Super Vape store and Boho Black Café - have been identified as close contact sites after they were visited by positive cases last week.
No new cases though were found in the Armidale, Tamworth or Northern Rivers areas of northern NSW - sparking hope those LGAs could soon be released from lockdown.
In a worrying development, Wollongong, Kiama, and Shellharbour venues, including a Coles and Dan Murphy's, were among the dozens of new casual contact sites added on Wednesday, igniting fears Sydney's outbreak may also be seeping south.
However, the majority of sites were located in Sydney's southwest and western Covid hotspots, and comprised of several supermarkets and chemists.
They include Woolworths stores in Punchbowl, Revesby, Winston Hills, Minto, Lidcombe, Lakemba, and Fairfield, as well as Coles in Casula, Mount Druitt, Revesby and Rhodes.
Branches of the supermarket giants were also impacted in Newcastle, the Central Coast, Shellharbour, and Kiama.
Highlighting the concentration of cases in the Cantebury-Bankstown LGA, a Woolworths store in Bankstown has 17 different exposure time listings across 12 days.
The 344 new locally-acquired cases came as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned more LGAs in Sydney's south and inner-west could face tighter lockdown measures
Ms Berejiklian meanwhile repeated her intention to consider ease social distancing restrictions as soon as September in Sydney suburbs where case numbers are low but vaccination rates are high.
'Please note that they are two different things - lockdown now, plus opportunities to live life differently in September and October, is very different to what life looks like at 70 percent,' she said.
The NSW premier said restrictions would remain but that once a 'low risk' community reached 80 percent double vaccination, the focus of the rules would change and Covid could be treated more like the flu rather than a 'sinister virus'.
Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore, and Ballina Shire were placed into a snap seven-day lockdown on Monday, which is due to lift on August 17 (pictured, a queue for Covid-19 testing at Byron Bay Hospital)
Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned the city's Delta outbreak is threatening to move back eastwards after an increase in cases in the Bayside and Inner-West areas (pictured, a drive-through testing centre in Ashfield on Wednesday)
'That means that we no longer focus on the number of cases, we focus on the number of hospitalisations,' she said.
'When you have such high rates of vaccination, people can live more freely and we can focus on keeping people out of hospital rather than counting cases.
'It's a bit premature now but in a few weeks we'll have a better idea of what September and October looks like because we will be able to see what a consistent rate of vaccination looks like.'
Ms Berejiklian used the exchange to urge people in Greater Sydney to more widely embrace vaccination.
'Please get vaccinated because there could be opportunities in September and October for us to say to the community, if you are vaccinated you might be able to do a certain level of activity which you can't now.
'They are conversations we are starting to have. They will be based on health advice.'